Russian troops claim control of the Ukrainian town of Soledar, located in the eastern Donetsk province, the Russian Defense Ministry has announced.
This area is strategically essential to prevent the Ukrainian army from providing military supplies and thus isolating and blocking one of the main Russian attack points: Bakhmut.
"Soledar's issue is that the Russians approach the T-513 highway that controls the supplies to Bakhmut from the north," explains Cristian Villanueva, director of
Ejércitos
magazine, in the video .
The Russian side is already celebrating this fact as its first victory since July, when they conquered the cities of Lisichansk and Severodonetsk.
Félix Arteaga, principal investigator of the Elcano Royal Institute, explains about the context in which the Ukrainian army finds itself after the Russian advance: "It would not bring any other advantage to Russia other than to evict the Ukrainian troops from there and that they would have to go to reinforce the big cities in a more solvent way”.
Sources of the Armed Forces of Ukraine deny the loss of this town.
Ukraine has reported that its army is still holding out in Soledar after a night full of fighting.
The UkraineWorld Twitter account stated: “Fighting continues in Soledar, according to Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the AFU Eastern Group of Forces.”
Is the city already under Russian control as the Kremlin claims?
To what extent can the advance of Putin's troops affect Ukraine?
In the video that accompanies this news item, Cristian Villanueva and Félix Arteaga delve into the situation in the town after days of harassment and successive almost hand-to-hand combat.