The mercenary assault on Soledar

Russia’s Wagner Group gains control over most of the mining town and threatens Ukrainian positions near Bakhmut, but the offensive’s price has been high

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

The Wagner Group’s mercenary formations appear to have gained control over the greater part of Soledar, a salt-mining town just north of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, as reported by the British Defense Ministry in its January 10 morning intelligence update. Over the past four days, the Russian forces have stormed the city, fighting in part for control over the entrances to the disused 200-kilometer (125-mile) salt-mine tunnels running beneath the district, which can be used by both sides to move past enemy lines. Bakhmut itself, notes the UK’s Defense Intelligence, probably remains the main objective of the Russian offensive, but it’s unlikely to be fully surrounded in the nearest future.

Wagner formations are engaged in combat in the center of Soledar, reports the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), citing Russian military bloggers. “Combat footage widely circulated on social media on January 9 shows Wagner Group fighters engaging in fierce small arms combat near the city administration building in central Soledar,” notes ISW. On January 9, Wagner PMC financier Evgeny Prigozhin also said that his formations were engaged in intense combat near Soledar’s town hall.

Update: The Wagner Group appears to have seized the town hall. Video footage published on Telegram shows Russian troops guarding the entrance, and claiming to be “purging” the town center.

The Russian forces, reports ISW, have secured new lines by Soledar and Bakhmut. Russian war bloggers write that the Ukrainian army is successfully defending the Artemsol facility, the largest salt-mining site in Central and Eastern Europe, as well as the nearby high-rise buildings in the northern section of Soledar.

On January 10, Evgeny Prigozhin acknowledged that the Ukrainian army was defending Soledar’s western outskirts with great spirit and bravery, and that rumors of desertion in the Ukrainian ranks were completely untrue. The head of the self-proclaimed “Donetsk People’s Republic,” Denis Pushilin, said something similar to the state news agency RIA Novosti, claiming that Soledar is now “very close to being liberated,” though he warned that it may “come at a great price.” According to Pushilin, the focus of combat is now Soledar’s western side, which is the only possible direction for Ukrainian retreat.

Late on January 9, Hanna Maliar, Ukraine’s deputy defense minister, reported that Wagner formations had launched a “powerful assault” on Soledar. Maliar explained that “a large number of assault units” formed from the Wagner Group’s “best reserves” has been deployed in the new assault, and that Russian troops were “literally advancing over their own soldiers’ dead bodies, with massive use of artillery, multiple rocket launchers, and mortars that cover even their own fighters with fire.”

On January 10, the Armed Forces of Ukraine General Staff reported that the Ukrainian army managed to deflect the Russian offensive, just as it had over the previous two days.

Russian forces have reached a position that gives them fire access to the main Ukrainian supply line in Soledar. On January 9 at 9 p.m., local time, the editor of the Ukrainian news outlet Censor.net Yury Butusov reported from Soledar that a “threatening situation” had developed in the town. “The Russians cannot reach the road itself,” he wrote, “but normal transport is impossible, which is critical to the defense.” “It’s still possible to fix the situation,” he believes.

In recent days, Butusov shared on Facebook, Ukrainian paratroopers defending Soledar have been fighting Russian assault groups at 20–30-meter range (65–100 feet). “Russian assault groups are being destroyed one by one in short-range contact battles, but they continue to attack and bring in reserves,” he said, adding that the Ukrainian troops are struggling with cold weather, as temperatures sometimes drop to –18 C (just below 0 F).

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke of significant Russian losses in the battle for Soledar. In his video on the war’s 320th day, Zelensky said that the town had been practically demolished, with next to no life left, and that thousands of Russians had been killed and now lie strewn about the area. Zelensky said that the combat zone stretching between Ukraine’s Donetsk and Luhansk regions is currently the “hottest” segment of the front. Ukrainian forces, he said, are enduring and deflecting increasingly fierce assaults, gaining time for Ukraine to send in reinforcements.

Authorities in Kyiv believe that regular Russian army formations are being sent to Soledar, to replenish the Wagner Group’s losses in the “reckless” head-on offensive.