Russian Defense Ministry says Soledar under Russian control

According to the Russian Defense Ministry’s daily briefing, the Russian military has established full control over the town of Soledar. The town has seen fierce fighting over the last few weeks.

They reported that the “liberation” of Soledar was completed on the evening of January 12. Kyiv did has not commented on the city’s capture. On the morning of January 13, the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said that fighting for the city continued overnight. The American Institute for the Study of War (ISW) reported in its January 12 Daily Review that Russian forces had probably captured Soledar.

The town was captured through the efforts of Russian aviation, artillery, and missile forces. They continuously shelled Ukrainian positions, preventing the transfer of enemy reserves and ammunition, as well as attempts by the Ukrainian military to retreat to other defensive lines, the report said.

In addition, during the operation, Russian paratroopers “performed a covert maneuver,” occupying dominant positions and blockading the city from the northern and southern sides.

“The combination of measures implemented by Russian troops ensured the successful offensive of our assault groups to liberate Soledar. In the last three days alone, more than seven hundred Ukrainian servicemen and more than three hundred pieces of equipment were destroyed near Soledar,” the Russian Ministry of Defense reports.

According to the ministry, the seizure of Soledar allows the Russians to cut off the supply routes to Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut, as well as block and take the remaining Ukrainian units in the “cauldron”.

In response to the ISW report, Colonel Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the Ukrainian Defense Forces in the Eastern sector, stated that, “The information from ISW is not true. There is still fighting in the city.”

In wartime, new military information cannot always be promptly verified, even when presented by official sources. Please consider it critically.

• On January 11, Wagner Group founder Evgeny Prigozhin reported the capture of Soledar exclusively by the Wagner PMC forces. His claims were denied by, among others, representatives of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. In turn, the Russian Defense Ministry, when reporting on the situation in Soledar in the last week, did not mention Wagner Group fighters, noting the participation of Russian military in the operation.