On Friday, various Ukrainian military units insisted that fighting for the eastern city of Soledar was continuing, rejecting claims of capture by the Russian Defense Ministry and the private military company Wagner, CNN reported.

schools and buildings destroyed in Soledar during fighting between Russian-Ukrainian forces (Maxar satellite images)Photo: Handout / AFP / Profimedia

“Local fighting continues in the city,” the 46th Separate Airborne Brigade reported on Telegram on Friday. “Orcs [rușii] press from the periphery to the center. Apparently, they are trying to bring those from our parts who did not have time to leave the city to the center. You will not succeed, Russians.”

On Friday, the General Staff of Ukraine released a video of a soldier who allegedly took part in the fighting for Soledar, which claims that “fierce fighting” was still going on in the city on Friday at 2:13 p.m. local time.

But according to the testimony of a CNN reporter near the front, the facts show that Ukrainian forces moved troops on Friday afternoon in what appeared to be an organized retreat.

On Friday evening, the Russian military praised the “courage” of the fighters of the “Wagner” PMK, without mentioning them in the statement published the day before.

According to the statement of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the operations to capture Soledar, announced by Moscow, but denied by Kyiv, were carried out by “a diverse group of troops”, but “a direct assault on the residential quarters of Soledar (…) was successfully achieved thanks to the brave and selfless actions of the volunteers of Wagner’s assault groups.”

The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said in an assessment released late Thursday that Russia’s alleged capture of Soledar is not a significant operational development and is unlikely to signal Russia’s imminent encirclement of Bakhmut.

Russian intelligence operations greatly exaggerate the importance of Soledar, which is at best a Russian tactical victory “à la Pirus.”

ISW continues to assess that the capture of Soledar – a settlement of less than 14 square kilometers – will not allow Russian forces to control critical Ukrainian land lines of communication in Bakhmut, nor will it improve the position of Russian forces for a short-range encirclement of the city. term.

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