Russia claims its forces have taken control of the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar after weeks of intense fighting, but Kyiv said its troops were still fighting in the town.
Russia’s defense ministry said on Friday that its forces had wrested control of the salt-mining town, where buildings have been reduced to rubble since it became the center of a relentless Russian offensive.
“The capture of Soledar was made possible thanks to the constant bombardment of the enemy by attack and army aviation, missile forces and artillery of a group of Russian forces,” the statement said.
Control of the city would allow Russia to cut Ukraine’s “supply lines” to the nearby, strategically important city of Bakhmut and then “block and surround Ukrainian units there,” the ministry said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a late-night video address on Friday that Kyiv forces were continuing to battle Russian troops in the city.
Earlier, military spokesman Serhiy Cherevaty said Ukrainian forces were keeping the situation “under control in difficult conditions.”
If Soledar falls, it will mark a rare military success for the Kremlin after a series of battlefield setbacks and humiliating retreats.
Ukrainian soldiers previously told Al Jazeera they expected Soledar to “fall immediately”.
“They said there are very few Ukrainian soldiers left in Soledar and there are plans to get the rest of them out,” said Al Jazeera’s Charles Stratford, reporting from the outskirts of Bakhmut.
The loss of Soledar would put “enormous pressure” on Bahmut, 10 km (6.2 miles) south of the city, Stratford said.
“The scenes in the city [of Bakhmut] are truly amazing, there is hardly a building, especially in the center, that is not partially or completely destroyed,” he said.
“The streets are practically deserted, there are very, very few civilians and, interestingly, very few military personnel. There was very heavy shelling.
“In about two hours [inside the city]we were warned to move by the Ukrainian special forces as according to their intelligence about 600 Russian soldiers could be seen entering the northeastern part of Bakhmut and taking up new positions.
Heavy losses on both sides
For days, Kyiv said its soldiers were holding out in Soledar, in what has become one of the bloodiest battlefields of the entire war.
“This is a difficult phase of the war, but we will win. There is no doubt,” Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar wrote earlier on the Telegram messaging app.
Al Jazeera’s Ali Hashem, reporting from Moscow, said: “Soledar, according to the Russians, has fallen into their hands and this will be a big boost for them to try to take Bakhmut.”
Fighting has continued “since the truce the Russians announced on Orthodox Christmas Day,” he said.
With a new Russian general to lead the military effort in Ukraine and “what the Russians call the liberation of Soledar … It means that in the coming days Russia will be attacked,” Hashem said.
Russia’s announcement came after the Wagner group – a Russian mercenary force heavily involved in the war in Ukraine – said its fighters had taken over Soledar.
“The Wagner group said they completely control the city. They even posted videos showing their fighters walking around the city,” Hashem said.
Hundreds of Russian and Ukrainian soldiers are believed to have been killed in Soledar, which is in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region – one of four partially occupied regions in eastern and southern Ukraine that Moscow decided to unilaterally annex in September.
The town had a pre-war population of around 10,000 and sits above cavernous salt mines.
US downplays Soledar’s capture
Overall, the front lines have hardly moved in the two months since Russia’s last major retreat south.
Ukraine is rearming for a planned push to push Russian forces out of more territory as Moscow bolsters its ranks in a bid to retain control of land it has already seized.
The United States – Kyiv’s biggest ally – said a Russian victory in Soledar or even Bakhmut, a city 10 times its size where the Russians have so far been repulsed, would mean little for the overall trajectory of the war.
“Even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall into the hands of the Russians, it won’t have a strategic impact on the war itself and it certainly won’t stop the Ukrainians or slow them down,” John Kirby, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, told reporters at the White House on Thursday.
The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, D.C., also said the fall of the city would not be an “operationally significant development and is unlikely to herald an impending Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.”
Russia has “exaggerated the importance of Soledar”, ISW said, adding that the long and difficult battle for the city had exhausted Moscow’s forces.
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