As Moscow’s defense ministry claimed to have finally captured the salt mining town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine after days of relentless bloodshed on Friday, the Kremlin faced an escalation in its conflict with Wagner boss Yevgeny Prigozhin over who deserves credit.
While Ukraine has denied claims that the town has even fallen, the capture of Soledar would represent Russia’s first significant battlefield victory after six months of humiliating pushbacks and failures. The town has been targeted by Russian troops in a bid to cut off supply routes to the nearby city of Bakhmut, the defense ministry said.
“In the evening of 12 January, the city of Soledar, that is of great importance for continuing successful offensive operations in Donetsk direction, was liberated,” the ministry said in a statement. “The establishment of full control of Soledar allows [us] to block the supply routes of Ukrainian forces in the city of [Bakhmut] located to the southwest, as well as to block and to pocket the units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) that still remain there.”
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The statement, which went on to claim that 700 Ukrainians had been “eliminated” in the last three days, did not mention Wagner fighters at all.
On Tuesday, Putin’s longtime ally Prigozhin claimed his miscreant mercenaries had taken “control of all the territory of Soledar,” only for his assertion to be denied by Ukrainian authorities—and Russia’s defense ministry.
On Friday, Prigozhin appeared to double down by sharing a quote on his Telegram account suggesting that Wagner alone had taken Soledar.
“I read with surprise the summary of the Ministry of Defense,” the quote attributed to Andrey Troshev, head of the League for the Protection of the Interests of Veterans of Local Wars and Military Conflicts said. “There was not a single paratrooper on Soledar, the paratroopers themselves confirm this. Soledar was taken solely by the efforts of the fighters of the Wagner PMC. And there is no need to offend the fighters by humiliating their merit. You are demotivating them. We must fight, and not measure ourselves with members and steal other people’s merits.”
The rising row between the mercenaries and the regular Russian armed forces comes as Ukrainian officials have denied that Soledar has even been captured at all.
“This is not true,” Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesperson for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, told RBC-Ukraine of Russia’s claims on Friday. “The fighting is going on in the city. I cannot tell the details.”
Whatever the status of the small town, which had an estimated pre-war population of just 10,000 people, both sides appear to agree that Soledar has been the scene of some of the most intense fighting since the war in Ukraine began last year.
Exactly how much strategic importance it holds, however, is up for debate.
“Even if both Bakhmut and Soledar fall to the Russians, it’s not going to have a strategic impact on the war itself,” White House national security spokesman John Kirby said Thursday. “It certainly isn’t going to stop the Ukrainians or slow them down.”
The sentiment was echoed by Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar who gave an update on Soledar early Friday. “The night in Soledar was hot, battles continued,” Malyar wrote on Telegram. “The enemy threw almost all the main forces in the direction of Donetsk and maintains a high intensity of the offensive. Our fighters are bravely trying to hold the defense. This is a difficult phase of the war, but we will win this war. There is no doubt.”
