CNN

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Battling is nonetheless raging in Soledar, a salt mine town in eastern Ukraine, inspite of Russian promises that it has received management of the region.

Should Russian troops without a doubt seize the town, it would mark Moscow’s very first obtain in the Donbas for months – potentially presenting President Vladimir Putin some welcome information soon after a string of defeats on the battlefield considering the fact that very last summer season.

The importance of Soledar in military services conditions is minimal. Nonetheless, its seize would make it possible for Russian forces, and specially the Wagner mercenary team, to switch their concentrate on close by Bakhmut, which has been a target because the summer time.

Having Soledar would also depict a symbolic PR get for the person who operates Wagner – oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has routinely criticized the Russian Defense Ministry’s administration of the “Special Navy Operation” in Ukraine.

Here’s what you want to know about Soledar.

As has generally been the circumstance with battlefield gains and losses, there are conflicting experiences from Russian and Ukrainian sides about the results of Russia’s progress into the town.

The Ukrainian armed forces have advised CNN that “Russian troops do not command Soledar.”

In a quick get in touch with with CNN Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for Japanese Team of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that “battles are ongoing there. The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other defense forces are regrouping.”

He explained the recommendation that Russian forces manage and surrounded Soledar as an “information procedure.” He also called out Prigozhin for “staging” a photograph that claimed to display him in a area salt mine. Prigozhin stated late on Tuesday evening that Wagner forces ended up in full manage of the city.

Cherevatyi included that Ukrainian forces were giving troops with ammunition and foodstuff, describing the circumstance as “under manage.” He additional choices to “improve the tactical predicament were currently being seemed for.”

An outspoken critic of the Russian Protection Ministry, Igor Girkin, has mentioned that “the seizure of the heart and substantially of Soledar by Wagner’s models is an plain tactical accomplishment.”

But Girkin, a former defense minister in the self-declared Donetsk People’s Republic who blogs about the war hard work on Telegram, extra: “The enemy front was NOT broken, and it was not feasible to encircle the units defending the city … The battling for the town is not more than but, the western outskirts and suburbs will have to be assaulted.”

Soledar lies at the centre of the Donbas location, the broad expanse of jap Ukraine whose seize Russia has prized above all other regions given that last summer season. In fact, Moscow regards it as Russian territory because professing (illegally) that it experienced annexed all of Donetsk area – together with the close to 40% that lies outside Russian handle.

It is just a several miles northeast of the bigger town of Bakhmut, which has grow to be perhaps the most contested and kinetic part of the 1,300-kilometer (800 mile) front line in Ukraine and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

The town of Soledar in Donetsk has thus been a target for Russian forces due to the fact very last May well. With a pre-war population of about 10,000, it has very little strategic value in itself, but is a waypoint in the Russians’ attritional slog westwards. Moscow has struggled for months to attack Bakhmut from the east, but ended up it to capture Soledar, Moscow would at the very least be equipped to strategy the metropolis from a distinctive path.

The space all around Soledar contains massive salt mines, which belong to point out organization Artemsil, the most significant producer of salt in Europe, which halted output soon after Russia’s invasion past February. The location surrounding the town hosts “extensive reserves of really pure salt that have only been exploited on an industrial scale considering that 1881,” in accordance to the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Some have speculated that the Russians – and Wagner’s chief Prigozhin – have eyed Soledar for its substantial means of gypsum. Prigozhin has employed Wagner in Africa and Syria as a mercenary pressure to leverage obtain to assets like diamonds and oil.

But exploiting Soledar’s famed salt mines would call for hefty investment and a additional tranquil ecosystem than at current. Prigozhin has claimed the large network of tunnels created by the mining features “unique and historic defenses,” and a “network of underground metropolitan areas.”

The Russian armed forces have had absolutely nothing to rejoice due to the fact the beginning of July, and have experienced to retreat in both of those Kharkiv to the north and Kherson in southern Ukraine.

The seize of Soledar, even with its now-ruined state, would consequently be uncommon progress. But it would be symbolic fairly than substantive. The Institute for the Analyze of War (ISW) suggests manage of Soledar “will not necessarily permit Russian forces to exert command around important Ukrainian floor lines of interaction into Bakhmut,” the larger sized prize.

“Even taking the most generous Russian statements at encounter value, the capture of Soledar would not portend an rapid encirclement of Bakhmut,” the imagine tank extra.

But Soledar is of outsize importance to one particular gentleman: Prigozhin. His Wagner fighters, lots of of them previous prison inmates, have taken heavy casualties with one particular wave following a different of ground assaults throughout what has turn out to be a battlefield of trenches and mud, reminiscent of Globe War I. Right after months in which the Russian Ministry of Protection has delivered practically nothing but retreat, Prigozhin is keen to display that his adult males produce.

Late Tuesday, Prigozhin explained “Wagner PMC detachments have taken handle of the full territory of Soledar. The town heart is like a cauldron, wherever urban combating is taking location.” And he added: “I would like to stress that no units other than Wagner PMC operatives had been concerned in the storming of Soledar.”

The subtext of Soledar is the fight for influence and resources concerning Prigozhin and his nemeses at the Defense Ministry, which is intensifying as Prigozhin carries on to deride what he calls the corrupt and incompetent military services hierarchy.

For now, Ukrainian forces look to be holding some positions in Soledar, with soldiers indicating the center of the town is nevertheless intensely contested.

The Ukrainian tactic could be to invite wave just after wave of infantry attacks, recognizing they can inflict significant casualties on the enemy, a tactic employed with good results in Vuhledar late final 12 months. Ukraine’s command would then select a minute to withdraw to Bakhmut.

Ukraine’s 46th Brigade alluded to this tactic in an on the internet article on Tuesday, expressing, “The problem is extremely challenging, but workable: we only abandon what we contemplate inexpedient to preserve.” Striving to maintain Soledar – like trying to maintain Lysychansk, the final holdout in the Luhansk region, final summer months – gets to be inexpedient when casualties rise and resupply will become in the vicinity of unattainable.

Girkin observed: “Even the slide of the entire Bakhmut-Soledar-Siversk fortified line will not direct to the collapse of the AFU [Ukrainian] front. In the rear they have the major fortification in the Donbas – the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk fortification. And it even now desires to be attained.”

Ukraine has defense in depth in the course of the parts of Donetsk it continue to holds – and has compelled the Russians to expend massive quantities of munitions to make marginal development.