KYIV — Soledar was a relatively unremarkable city in the eastern region of Donetsk before the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The name literally translates as 'gift of salt,' owing to its home to enormous salt mines, the largest in Europe. Now those mines serve as defensive positions for Ukraine's embattled military. Should the city fall to Russian forces, which consist almost exclusively of mercenaries from the infamous Wagner Group, Russian forces would be able to increase pressure on the Ukrainian fortress city of Bakhmut, a strategic hub that has been under a relentless Russian siege since the beginning of August.
in absentia by a Dutch court of murder in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 in 2014, denied Soledar had either been captured or encircled by Russian forces.
Those losses are hard to gauge owing to an intense information campaign from both sides. Both sides claim the other has suffered significant casualties, whilst third parties, such as the British Ministry of Defense,With white snow above and white mineral below Soledar, the battle for this small town of just 10,000 inhabitants is entering its fifth month, mainly as a sideshow or preliminary to the bigger push to take the northeast city of Bakhmut, to Soledar’s south.
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