Russia pushes to capture Ukraine’s Soledar, as fighting leaves battlefield ‘covered with corpses’
- Reports of sustained and powerful Russian attacks on Soledar, a key town in eastern Ukraine
- Soledar is near the eastern city of Bakhmut that Moscow has been trying to capture for months
Russian troops have stepped up an assault on the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, forcing Ukrainian troops to repel waves of attacks led by mercenary forces, officials in Kyiv said.
Britain’s defence ministry said on Tuesday that Russian and forces of the Wagner contract group were probably now in control of most of the small salt mining town after advances in the last four days.
Soledar, in the industrial Donbas region, lies a few kilometres from Bakhmut, where troops from both sides have been taking heavy losses in some of the most intense trench warfare since Russia invaded Ukraine nearly 11 months ago.
“Russia’s Soledar axis is highly likely an effort to envelop Bakhmut from the north, and to disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication,” Britain said in an intelligence brief.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his nightly video address on Monday that Bakhmut and Soledar were holding on despite widespread destruction.
He cited new and fiercer attacks in Soledar, where he said no walls have been left standing and the land was covered with Russian corpses.