The city of Soledar, the scene of intense fighting in the past few days, has been taken under control by units of Russia’s Wagner private military company, the company’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin was quoted as saying by his press service on Tuesday night.
"Units of the Wagner private military company have taken the entire territory of Soledar under their control. The city center has been surrounded, and urban warfare is under way. The number of captives will be announced tomorrow," Prigozhin was quoted as saying on his company’s Telegram channel.
The acting head of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), Denis Pushilin, said the republic’s cities of Soledar and Artemovsk were about to be liberated. Intense fighting is under way in those areas, he added.
Soledar and Bakhmut, also known as Artyomovsk, are located in the Kiev-controlled part of the DPR, which joined Russia last fall after the populace there held a referendum. Bakhmut has been an important transport hub for supplying the Ukrainian troops in Donbas amid Russia's special military operation.
The latest comes after Donetsk officials stated on Monday that Russian forces had managed to successfully take control of the Bakhmutskoe village, which sits near Soledar. The area is known as an important transport hub for supplying Ukrainian troops stationed in Donbass.
Oleksiy Arestovich, an adviser to the head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office, said on Wednesday that Ukraine's forces are fleeing the frontline in the city.
"We have units that are fleeing Soledar, were and are fleeing," Arestovich said in an appearance on the YouTube channel of journalist Mark Feigin (recognized as foreign agent media by Russia's Justice Ministry), adding that "enemy forces" take their place after squadrons flee.
The Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) has gained control of the central part of the city of Soledar, DPR’s acting head, Denis Pushilin, said on Tuesday.
"According to the latest updates I have, central Soledar is already under the control of the Wagner private military company," he said in an interview with Russia’s TV Channel One.
"On the one hand, they have made a lodgment and on the other hand, they are moving quite effectively, mopping up Soledar’s western part," he said, adding that it is the last direction the enemy could retreat to. "By the end of this day, we see that the enemy continues to sustain serious losses here, both in manpower and weapons," he noted.
Special operation, January 9th. The main thing:
▪️ According to the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, Ukrainian security forces were hit by fire in the Kupyansky, Krasno-Limansky, Yuzhno-Donetsk directions, Russian troops continue offensive operations in the Donetsk direction;
▪️ During the counter-battery fight, two US-made AN / TPQ-50 counter-battery radar stations, an M777 artillery system, two Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery mounts, two Ukrainian Akatsia self-propelled howitzers, and a D-30 howitzer were destroyed;
▪️ Su-25 and MiG-29 planes of the Ukrainian Air Force, as well as a Ukrainian Mi-8 helicopter were shot down in the sky over the DPR;
▪️ The DPR headquarters announced the liberation of the Bakhmutskoye settlement northeast of Artemovsk;
▪️ Russia is not at war with Ukraine, hatred for ordinary Ukrainians "by definition cannot be in our country," Patrushev said. The whole story with Ukraine was started in Washington in order to work out the technologies for delimiting and playing off a single people;
▪️ For the first time since the beginning of the conflict in Ukraine, London is considering the possibility of supplying Challenger 2 tanks to Kyiv, Sky reports;
▪️ Germany is "frantically" looking for the 40 Marder infantry fighting vehicles promised to Ukraine, and since it does not have a reserve of such vehicles, Berlin will have to take most of it from the reserves of its own armed forces;
▪️ Ukraine asked Georgia to return the Buk complexes transferred in 2008 and asked for the Javelin complexes transferred by Washington, but was refused, said Kyiv's charge d'affaires in Tbilisi;
▪️ Poland can send only a symbolic number of Leopard tanks to Ukraine, there are no talks of tens or hundreds, a representative of the Office of the Polish President said;
▪️ Peskov about reports of a possible new wave of partial mobilization: no need to attach importance to the data of Telegram channels, the source is the authorities.
▪️Russian aviation and artillery strikes hit two warehouses of missile and artillery weapons of the 53rd mechanized brigade of the Armed Forces of Ukraine and the 108th brigade of territorial defense in the area of the settlement of Konstantinovka of the Donetsk People's Republic and the city of Orekhov , Zaporozhye region, as well as 62 artillery units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in firing positions, live force and military equipment in 105 areas.
▪️In the course of a counter-battery fight, the following were destroyed in firing positions during the day: two M777 artillery systems made in the USA; four Polish-made Krab self-propelled artillery mounts in the DPR; three D-20 towed howitzers in the LPR and Sumy region; two installations of Grad multiple launch rocket systems, as well as a MLRS Uragan combat vehicle in the DPR. In addition, near the settlements of Artemovsk and Dzerzhinsk of the Donetsk People's Republic, two US-made counter-battery radars AN / TPQ-50 and AN / TPQ-36 were destroyed.
▪️Russian aviation shot down three Ukrainian Air Force Su-25 aircraft in the Donetsk People's Republic.
▪️Russian air defense systems destroyed ten Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles in a day.
No comments:
Post a Comment