The British Ministry of Defense said in a brief daily intelligence briefing, “Russia’s somber axis is an attempt to encircle Bakhmut from the north and disrupt Ukrainian lines of communication.”
In an overnight address, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky acknowledged that the situation in Soledor was “difficult”, but said that Ukrainian defenders had bought more time by holding out, and that Kyiv would eventually push the Russians out of the entire eastern Donbass industrial region.
“And what did Russia want to achieve there? Everything is completely destroyed, almost no lives are left. And thousands of their people are lost: the whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and traces of attacks Is.” They said. “It looks like madness.”
Near Bakhmut, a team of Ukrainian soldiers was firing a heavy anti-aircraft gun at Russian ground targets in a barren, icy field.
“We’re frying orcs,” said the soldier with the nome de guerre “Pilot,” using a common Ukrainian slur for Russian soldiers.
His crew receives coordinates of Russian targets from spotters or drones. They periodically shelled Russian positions, and opened heavy fire on advancing enemy troops: “If they creep too actively, we kill them in large numbers.”
Serhiy Cherevaty, a spokesman for Ukraine’s eastern army, said the Russians were deploying their best Wagner fighters to Soledar, which had been hit 86 times by artillery in the past 24 hours.
He compared Russian tactics to World War I: throwing large numbers of men into ground fighting and absorbing heavy losses.
“It’s basically not 21st century warfare,” he said.
supply impossible
Reuters itself could not confirm the position inside Soledar. Journalist Yuri Butusov, embedded with Ukrainian troops in Soledar, wrote for the online outlet New Voice that Russian forces had established fire control on the main Ukrainian supply route.
“It is not a complete encirclement, but normal supply on the route is impossible, (and) it is vital to the defence,” he said.
Wagner, a mercenary company founded by Putin aide Yevgeny Prigozhin, has played a major role in the Bakhmut battle as Russia’s regular military forces elsewhere on the front line have moved to mostly defensive positions.
Prigozhin, whose fighters are also active across Africa and the Middle East, has released videos showing himself recruiting fighters in Russian prisons with offers of amnesty.
The Soledar cavern on Saturday was important for its network of mining tunnels, he said. Washington says that Prigozhin wants personal control over the region’s minerals.
Zelensky has repeatedly urged Ukraine’s Western backers to supply more sophisticated weapons. Last week, one of Ukraine’s biggest pleas was answered when the United States, Germany and France pledged large numbers of Western armored fighting vehicles for the first time. Kyiv is still seeking Western battle tanks.