The destruction caused by the confrontation between Russian and Ukrainian forces fighting for control of the town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine is visible in satellite images.

Below you can see the difference between how Soledar looked on August 1, 2022, and how it looked on January 10, 2023, as bomb craters characterize the landscape and roads around the salt-mining city of Donetsk.

August 1, 2022 vs. January 10, 2023

Maxar satellite images / PHOTO handout / AFP / Profimedia

August 1, 2022 vs. January 10, 2023

Satellite image Maxar / FOTO Handout / AFP / Profimedia

Also, satellite images from January 3, 2023 show thousands of craters in the fields near the roads around the city of Bakhmut.

Much of the destruction has been caused in recent weeks as Russian forces attempt to capture the city after months of failing to capture any key Ukrainian cities.

Soledar’s strategic importance is contested by military analysts, but if Russia succeeds in establishing full control over the city, it will be a symbolic victory for the Kremlin.

The Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Hanna Malyar, claims that the Russians do not take into account large losses and continue to attack the mining town in the Donetsk region.

“Fierce battles are taking place in the direction of Soledar,” said Malyar. “They (Russians) are moving over their own corpses.”

Ukraine says hundreds of civilians remain trapped in Soledar as bloody fighting continues for control of the devastated mining town in eastern Ukraine.

As Pavlo Kyrylenko, the governor of the Donetsk region, told Ukrainian state television, 559 civilians remained in Soledar, including 15 children, who could not be evacuated.

How Chief Wagner Justifies His Soledar Obsession

With a pre-war population of about 10,000, it has no strategic value in itself, but is a milestone in the battle to wear down the Russians in the west.

Prigozhin believes that Soledar gives him access to minerals, stocks of firearms and a higher position in the Kremlin hierarchy.

“The icing on the cake is the mine system of Soledar and Bakhmut, which is actually a network of underground cities,” said Wagner’s head Yevgeny Prigozhin, who believes that soldiers, tanks and combat vehicles can move at a depth of 80-100 meters. through this underground network.

Prigozhin, who is likely to increase his political capital in Moscow if he captures Bakhmut given the Wagner Group’s role in the fighting there, said the weapons stockpile had been stored in underground compounds since the First World War.

The Ukrainian army said Thursday it was carrying out counterattacks in Soledar, a day after Commander Wagner said he had fully captured the town.

The Ukrainian military said on Thursday it was carrying out counterattacks in Soledar, a city in the east of the country that has come under heavy Russian bombardment. “After several days of withdrawal, we even made a little progress,” the 46th Separate Airborne Brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine reported in Telegram. “The station is ours. The mine is ours. We are waiting for your support. Soledar is Ukraine,” CNN reports.

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BBC: Battle of Soledar shows split in pro-Russian forces

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