“Everything is destroyed. Not a single wall left standing. There is no life. The land is covered with the corpses of the occupants and the scars left by the explosions. It is the image of madness”. The words that Volodimir Zelensky used in his nocturnal speech to describe the state in which the town of Soledarlocated just 10 kilometers from Bakhmutin eastern Ukraine, remind the employees to refer to Mariupol, the port city that Russia razed last spring.
The difference is that Mariupol, located on the shores of the Azov Sea, was one of the largest commercial ports of the country and an important industrial center. Thus, controlling it allowed Russian forces strangle the Ukrainian economy. Soledar, on the other hand, only has the distinction of being a small salt mining city that before the war had with about 10,000 inhabitants.
A priori seems to be no more than a springboard to reach Bakhmut, but the Kremlin forces They’ve been trying to take this city for five months from the Donbas region. In recent days, in fact, it has become the focus of intense fighting.
Attack of a Ukrainian tank at the Soledar Salt Mine with the support of aerial reconnaissance officers of the Border Service.
s/State Border Service of Ukraine pic.twitter.com/8ttk6LAI12
— NOËL ?? ?? (@NOELreports) January 8, 2023
“What does Russia want to win there?“, the Ukrainian president wondered in his daily message to the nation. And that is precisely the same doubt that has long haunted international analysts around the world, baffled by the insistence of the Russian forces in sending more and more units into that barren area.
There are those who maintain that it is a delusion of the Russian army, which day after day send your men to die senseless For others, it is a desperate attempt by Russian President Vladimir Putin to win, after months of battlefield setbacks, any kind of military victory, no matter how small. However, taking control of Soledar and Bakhmut has turned out to be a whim of the Wagner group. A particularly expensive treat.
[La “locura” de Rusia en Bakhmut, así dilapida el Grupo Wagner su prestigio en un ataque imposible]
The paramilitary organization founded and directed by businessman Eugeni Prigozhin has been in charge of operations in the Bakhmut area for months, where it seems to be making small gains. In fact, as the United Kingdom Ministry of Defense announced on Tuesday, the mercenaries of the Wagner Group have made “tactical advances” in the last four days and, “probably” they have already taken control of most of Soledar.
Hours later, Prigozhin assured that his men had taken over the whole territory. “In the center urban battles are still being fought. The number of prisoners will be announced tomorrow,” she explained at night on her Telegram channel. He also shared some military photos of him at what he claims is one of Soledar’s mines. “Only the Wagner Group has participated in the assault,” he emphasized in the message, which can be interpreted as one more attempt to demonstrate before the Kremlin the effectiveness of his private army as a fighting force.
?Wagner mercenaries reportedly inside one of the tunnels of a salt mine in #Soledar. #UkraineRussiaWar pic.twitter.com/nGNTe9ESRo
—MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) January 10, 2023
“The Icing on the Cake”
On Saturday, Prigozhin said that capturing this eastern town was “icing on the cake” for him. He specified that his greatest ambition was take over the salt and gypsum mining systems that make up “a network of underground cities”. It refers to the 200 kilometers of tunnels and the gigantic underground room that in times of peace served as a stage for concerts and hosted football matches.
“Not only can it house a large group of people at a depth of 80-100 metersalso tanks and combat vehicles can move easily,” Prigozhin wrote on his social networks. An explanation that suggests that he wants to turn the underground complexes into a weapons store or, where appropriate, a shelter for your military.
Photograph of the tunnels of the Soledar salt and gypsum mines.
[Guerra de trincheras con el barro por las rodillas: Rusia convierte Bakhmut en una batalla de 1914]
However, neither Prigozhin nor his “heroes” They answer to an authority superior to their interests. They are soldiers for hire charged with carrying out the dirty work of the Kremlin. Many of them are inmates who have had their sentences changed for joining the Russian ranks in Ukraine. Even Prigozhin, about whom little is known, spent nine years in prison for robbery and fraudas collected The Economist.
Salt and gypsum mines
In this sense, it would not be surprising if the founder of the Wagner Group wanted to seize the opportunity and exploit commercially Ukrainian natural resources found in Soledar and Bakhmut. That is the hypothesis being considered by a White House official who on Thursday assured that Prigozhin intends to extract salt and gypsum from the mines for economic gain.
In fact, that’s where his obsession with capturing the area would come from. According to Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Putin’s ally he would already be negotiating the loot with the pro-Russian authorities in Donbas.
Latest Defense Intelligence update on the situation in Ukraine – 10 January 2023
Find out more about the UK government’s response: https://t.co/aFDNytdSEu
?? #StandWithUkraine ?? pic.twitter.com/5Bg8NCKRNt
— Ministry of Defense ?? (@DefenceHQ) January 10, 2023
Previously, the United States had already accused Russian mercenaries of exploiting natural resources in the Central African Republic, Mali, Sudan and other places to help finance Moscow’s war in Ukraine, according to the news agency. Reuters.
On this occasion, in order to do business, the Russian military would first have to capture Bakhmut. A movement that, according to the British intelligence services, will not be so easy to execute. Although the capture of Soldear will increase the pressure on the much coveted enclave, “it is unlikely that Russia will succeed in encircling the city imminently because Ukrainian forces maintain stable defensive lines and control supply routes,” they note.
