The fate of a devastated salt-mining town in eastern Ukraine hung in the balance Wednesday as Ukraine said its forces were holding out against a furious Russian onslaught in what has become one of the fiercest and most costly battles in the almost 11-month┬аwar.
Though unlikely to provide a turning point in the war, Soledar’s fall to Russian forces after months of Ukrainian defence would be a prize for the Kremlin, which has been starved of good news from the battlefield amid Ukraine’s counteroffensive in recent months. It would also offer Russian troops a strategic springboard for their efforts to encircle the nearby city of Bakhmut.
Russia’s defence ministry said on Wednesday that airborne┬аunits had cut off Soledar from the north and south.
But Ukraine denied that the town, with a pre-war population┬аof around 10,000, had fallen.
Incoming artillery relentless: witness
“Heavy fighting continues in Soledar,” Ukrainian Deputy Defence┬аMinister Hanna Maliar┬аwrote on Telegram. “The enemy has again replaced its units after sustaining┬аlosses, has increased the number of Wagner fighters and is┬аtrying to burst through our forces’ defence and fully seize the┬аcity, but is not having success.”
The Kremlin also stopped short of claiming victory and┬аacknowledged heavy casualties.
Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation in┬аSoledar. But a Reuters photographer who has reached the┬а outskirts in recent days said many residents had fled along┬аroads out of the town in punishing cold.
She said plumes of smoke could be seen rising over the town┬аand the incoming artillery fire was relentless. Ambulances were waiting to receive┬аthe wounded along the road from Soledar to Bakhmut, and there was chaos in┬аfield hospitals.
‘Small town with great significance,’┬аRussian TV says
Denis Pushilin, leader of the Russian-controlled part of┬аDonetsk province, said Soledar’s capture would open a prospect of┬аseizing more significant towns farther west in what Russia has┬аrecognized as the Donetsk People’s Republic тАФ centre of Ukrainian heavy industry and one of the four provinces Russia claims to have annexed.
“And this is actually a turning point. Now┬аpreparations are┬аunderway for the moment we have been waiting for тАФ the┬а liberation of the Donetsk People’s Republic,” Pushilin said.
Soledar was the main item on Russian state television news,┬аwhich rarely mentions Russian reverses. Combative talk-show host┬аOlga Skabeyeva called it a “small town with great significance.”
Analysts were more┬аequivocal.
Soledar’s fall would make “holding Bakhmut much more precarious for Ukraine,” Michael Kofman, the director of Russia Studies at the CAN nonprofit research organization in Arlington, Va., noted Wednesday.
But the costly war of attrition, with expected heavy casualties, may make Russia’s victory as costly as a defeat.
“I don’t think the outcome at Bakhmut is that significant compared to what it costs Russia to achieve it,” Kofman said in a tweet.
The Institute for the Study of War says Russian forces are up against “concerted Ukrainian resistance” around Bakhmut.
“The reality of block-by-block control of terrain in Soledar is obfuscated by the dynamic nature of urban combat … and Russian forces have largely struggled to make significant tactical gains in the Soledar area for months,” the think-tank said.
The collapse of Soledar “would not mean the┬аUkrainian defensive line or front have collapsed and that it┬аwould be necessary to fall back to new defensive lines,” said┬аOleksandr Musiyenko, a Kyiv-based analyst.
The Wagner Group, which now reportedly includes a large contingent of convicts recruited in Russian prisons, has spearheaded the attack on Soledar and Bakhmut. Western intelligence has estimated that the Wagner Group constitutes up to a quarter of all Russian combatants in Ukraine.
Late Tuesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner Group, claimed in audio reports posted on his Russian social media platform that his forces had seized control of Soledar, though he also said that battles were continuing in a “cauldron” in the city’s centre.
Cavernous mines could hide troops, weapons
The Russian state news agency RIA said Wagner had taken over┬аSoledar’s salt mines, and a photograph posted on Wagner’s┬аTelegram channel appeared to show Prigozhin and his fighters┬аinside a mine.
Soledar’s cavernous mines are owned┬аby state-owned enterprise Artemsil, which dominated the┬аUkrainian salt market until it halted production a few months after┬аRussia invaded. The mines reach a depth of 200-300 metres and have tunnels with a combined length of 300 kilometres, according a local tourist website.
The enterprise was once considered one of the largest in eastern Europe and exported salt to 20 countries. A hot air balloon was once flown inside one of the mines to demonstrate┬аtheir depth.
The salt mines could serve as a commercially lucrative asset┬аand also be used to store ammunition and weapons out of range of┬аUkrainian missiles.
A U.S. official said last week that Prigozhin was interested┬аin taking control of salt and gypsum from mines near Bakhmut.┬аPrigozhin has himself spoken of Bakhmut’s “underground cities,”┬аsaying they can hold troops and tanks.
A success in Soledar and Bakhmut would help Prigozhin, who has openly criticized Russia’s military leadership, to increase his clout at the Kremlin.
Russia illegally annexed Donetsk and three other Ukrainian provinces in September, but its troops have struggled to advance. After Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November, the battle heated up around Bakhmut.
WATCH | CBC’s Chris Brown in Kyiv on the battle for Soledar:
The CBC’s Chris Brown is in Ukraine and reports on the intense fight for the eastern salt-mining town of Soledar, which is now under furious assault from Russia.
Other news from the war
- Russian forces┬аcontinued their shelling elsewhere, including┬а13 settlements in and around┬аKharkiv region that were largely returned to Ukrainian hands in September┬аand October, the Ukrainian military said.
- Ukraine introduced emergency┬аpower cuts in eastern and southeastern regions on Wednesday as┬аlow temperatures and difficult weather conditions stretched the┬аcountry’s crippled energy system, officials said.
- Russia’s still making plenty of money from oil sales despite a price cap imposed by the Group of Seven major democracies. Researchers at Helsinki’s Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air said the price cap and a ban on most oil shipments to Europe are costing Russia an estimated┬а$172┬аmillion US a day. But Russia is still taking in around $688 million a day.
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy spoke in a recorded message at Tuesday night’s Golden Globes ceremony. “There will be no third World War,” Zelenskyy said, predicting Russia’s defeat. “It is not a trilogy.”
