‘Soledar is gone’: Ukraine admits Russia controls Donetsk town
- Outnumbered Ukrainian troops have pulled back after weeks of heavy fighting, unable to prevail against waves of Moscow’s ‘cannon fodder’
- Russia’s capture of the salt-mining town was its first battlefield victory in months, and came on the back of a slew of humiliating defeats
On a road near Soledar, members of Ukraine’s territorial defence launched a surveillance drone towards the front line, where fighting is raging to hold back waves of fierce Russian attacks.
Ukraine conceded on Wednesday its troops had pulled back this month from Soledar, a town in the eastern Donetsk region that saw some of the fiercest battles of Russia’s nearly year-long invasion.
“For two or three days we lost positions but now we are working to push back to what we had before,” said Igor, part of the aerial reconnaissance unit involved in the attack.
Compared to the rest of the industrial Donetsk region – whose capture Russia has made its military priority – Soledar has seen some of “the worst fighting” over recent days, Igor said.
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Hundreds of Ukrainian civilians trapped in Soledar town by ‘heaviest’ fighting of the war
Russia’s notorious mercenary group Wagner claimed to have spearheaded the offensive for Soledar, claiming its capture on January 11. Two days later, Russia’s defence ministry announced Moscow’s forces controlled the salt-mining town with a pre-war population of around 10,000.