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The dispute over Soledar, eastern Ukraine, intensifies as both parties demand blows against their adversaries. The kyiv Army assured this January 12 that it killed at least 100 Russian soldiers in a bombardment, but pointed out that “the situation is difficult.” On the other hand, Russia and the Wagner Group of mercenaries maintain that they caused the death of about 500 Ukrainian soldiers. The battle for the key city in the capture of Bakhmut, which the invading troops have been seeking to control for months, intensifies.
Ukraine is resisting with fierce fighting to lose control of another of its cities in the war that Russia launched about 11 months ago.
The local Army “fought hard battles” to keep Soledar. This was stated by the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister, Hanna Maliar.
“The enemy does not pay attention to the heavy losses of his personnel and continues to actively storm. The approaches to our positions are simply littered with the bodies of dead enemies,” Maliar described.
His remarks came shortly after the kyiv Armed Forces reported that they killed more than 100 Russian soldiers in a single attack on Thursday, January 12.
According to the latest update from the command of the Special Operations Forces of the invaded country, the events occurred when a missile bombarded a unit of Russian troops.
However, kyiv acknowledged that “the situation is difficult” at a time when the invading troops are trying to break through the Ukrainian lines and surround their troops.
Accounts from soldiers from the nation attacked on that battlefront suggested that Russia transferred mercenaries from the Wagner Group ready to attack nearby Bakhmut to Soledar to focus solely on the siege of the small Donetsk Oblast town in the eastern Ukraine.
“The fight is fierce in the direction of Soledar. They (the Russians) are moving on their own corpses (…) Russia is leading its own people to slaughter by the thousands, but we are holding on,” remarked the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister .
Soledar, in eastern Ukraine, has become the center of fighting amid Russian ambitions to capture the nearby strategic city of Bakhmut.
Seizing Soledar, a point in the Donetsk region that the Russians have been trying to control for months, would be Moscow’s most substantial gain since last August, after a series of sensitive withdrawals in the second half of 2022.
Moscow claims to have killed at least 500 Ukrainian soldiers
Amid heavy fighting and difficulties in independently verifying information, Russia also claims to have dealt heavy blows to the Ukrainian military.
Yan Gagin, adviser to the pro-Russian separatist leader, Denis Pushilin, assured that Moscow troops destroyed five Ukrainian brigades in Soledar on Thursday. A statement that was supported by the founder of the Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin.
“About 500 people were killed. The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers. There can be no talk of any humanitarian corridor. We are going to start clearing the mines,” Prigozhin said.
The leader of the movement, questioned for human rights violations during his participation in conflicts in other countries, insisted that together with the Russian military they have “liberated” the small city.
However, kyiv denies this version. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky mocked Russian claims to have seized parts of the eastern city and declared that fighting was continuing.
“The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend to have achieved some successes in Soledar, but the fight continues,” said the president, adding that the Kremlin is lying in an attempt to garner support from its citizens in a conflict in which it has lost thousands of its soldiers and which has earned it strong economic sanctions from the West.
The Ukrainian Army also denied that Russian forces have surrounded and captured the small city, as the head of the mercenary group had pointed out.
For now the fate of Soledar remains uncertain, while satellite images reveal the magnitude of the destruction inflicted on a city known for its salt mines and which had 10,000 inhabitants before the conflict.
The magnifying glass on Belarus
While fighting fiercely to defend Soledar, the Ukrainians are also alert for any attacks that Moscow can launch from its ally Belarus, a country that borders northern Ukraine where the capital is located.
Zelensky asked his forces to be “ready both on the border and in the regions” close to Belarusian territory.
The warning is extended after the Ministry of Defense of the Alexander Lukashenko government announced on Wednesday, January 11, that the joint air defense forces with Russia were reinforced with new missile units.
In recent months, Minsk and Moscow have carried out various joint operations. Despite previously denying direct involvement in the conflict, that country has served as a military ally of Russian troops since weeks before Vladimir Putin ordered war against Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Ukrainian Brigadier General Oleksiy Gromov assured that the danger of an assault being launched from Belarus would remain throughout this year.
With Reuters, AP and EFE
