Hundreds of civilians remain trapped in Soledar, Ukraine has said, as bloody fighting continues over control of the largely destroyed salt mining town in eastern Ukraine.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of Donetsk, told Ukrainian state TV that 559 civilians remained in Soledar, including 15 children, and could not be evacuated.
Ukraine said on Thursday its troops were “holding on” as fighting continued in Soledar, dismissing claims made by the Russian mercenary group Wagner that its forces had taken control of the town.
“Fighting is fierce in the Soledar direction. [The Russians] are moving over their own corpses,” Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said.
“Russia is driving its own people to the slaughter by the thousands, but we are holding on.”
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group, said on Wednesday his troops had captured Soledar after intense fighting, and that the town was “littered with Ukrainian servicemen”.
But the Kremlin has so far declined to declare victory in Soledar.
When asked about Prigozhin’s victory claims, Vladimir Putin’s spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists: “Let’s not rush, let’s wait for official statements. There is a positive dynamic in progress.”
The capture of Soledar would signify Moscow’s first significant gain in half a year.
In its daily military briefing on Thursday, the Russian defence ministry did not mention developments surrounding Soledar.
Russian forces have recently focused their efforts on the capture of Soledar as part of their ambition to take the nearby strategic city of Bakhmut and Ukraine’s larger eastern Donbas region, leading to fierce battles in sub-zero temperatures over the past five days.
Drone footage released by Ukraine this week revealed some of the destruction inflicted on Soledar after months of fighting, with bomb craters scarring the landscape.
Before and after photos give a sense of the destruction:
Elsewhere, Ukrainian Brig Gen Oleksii Hromov said Russia was preparing a new offensive aimed at capturing Ukraine’s eastern and southern regions.
“It is expected that in the near future, the enemy will try to reach the administrative borders of Donetsk oblast, and may intensify its actions to capture the left-bank part of Zaporizhzhia oblast,” Hromov said.
Ukraine has been warning for weeks that Russia is preparing for a major offensive, claiming that Moscow is set to order the mobilisation of up to 500,000 conscripts in January.
Also on Thursday, a Russian delegation led by the commander of Russia’s ground forces, Oleg Salyukov, visited Belarus to review the combat readiness of a joint force stationed there.
Russia and Belarus have recently expanded their joint military training exercises in Belarus, as concern grows that Moscow is pressuring its closest ally to join the war.
Serhiy Nayev, the commander of Ukraine’s joint forces, said on Thursday the “situation in Belarus … did not pose an immediate threat”.
The trip came a day after a major shake-up in Moscow’s military leadership in which Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff, was appointed as the country’s overall commander for the war in Ukraine.