Russian mercenary chief claims victory despite Kremlin hesitation
Joel Gehrke
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Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin insisted that his forces managed to seize a town in eastern Ukraine, trumpeting a rare victory despite contradictions from Ukrainian and even Kremlin officials.
“Once again, I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar from units of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Civilians were withdrawn,” Prigozhin said Wednesday. “Ukrainian units that did not want to surrender were destroyed. … The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian military personnel.”
Prigozhin had to issue that second declaration of victory in part because Russian President Vladimir Putin’s team downplayed his claim to success on Tuesday. Ukrainian officials acknowledged an intense struggle for Soledar, a mining town north of Bakhmut, but maintained earlier in the day that the defenders continued to fight.
“There is a complicated situation there,” Ukrainian military spokesman Serhiy Cherevatiy said earlier Wednesday. “The intensity of battles near Bakhmut can be compared with World War II.”
RUSSIA CLAIMS CAPTURE OF SOLEDAR AS PENTAGON SAYS PUTIN UNDETERRED BY HEAVY BATTLEFIELD LOSSES
The struggle for the town figures into a wider attempt by Russia to seize control of Donetsk, a region that Putin has claimed as new Russian territory despite his inability thus far to occupy more than a part of the district.
“The main efforts of the enemy are concentrated on attempts to completely seize the Donetsk region, it is conducting offensive operations in the Bakhmut direction,” the Ukrainian General Staff stated in a Wednesday military update, according to an unofficial translation. “He is trying to take control of the city of Soledar and the supply routes of our units; he suffers heavy losses, the fighting continues.”
The fall of Soledar would not lead to an immediate defeat for Ukrainian forces in Bakhmut, according to U.S.-based analysts.
“Even taking the most generous Russian claims at face value, the capture of Soledar would not portend an immediate encirclement of Bakhmut,” an Institute for the Study of War team said in a Tuesday assessment. “Control of Soledar will not necessarily allow Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) into Bakhmut.”
Prigozhin has emerged as a high-profile leader of a fighting force with a reputation for superior effectiveness and equipment, raising the specter of a new power center in Putin’s tightly controlled network of oligarchs. He hastened to turn the battle into a propaganda victory for his Wagner Group operation, as distinct from any other regular Russian fighting force.
“Wagner units took control of the entire territory of Soledar … No units other than Wagner PMC fighters were involved in the storming of Soledar,” he said Tuesday.
Putin’s team signaled its displeasure with such a freelance declaration. “Let’s not rush. Let’s wait for official announcements,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said earlier Wednesday.
Russian Defense Ministry Sergei Shoigu’s team also contradicted Prigozhin’s claim to have fathered the victory on his own.
“Airborne Force units have blocked Soledar from the town’s northern and southern parts,” Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said Wednesday. “The Russian Aerospace Forces are delivering strikes at enemy strongholds. Assault groups are engaged in a battle in the town.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who visited Bakhmut in a dramatic front-line appearance prior to his visit to Washington in December, applauded the defenders of Soledar this week while implying that their performance provided a valuable delay to the Russian advance in that area.
“It is extremely difficult. There are almost no whole walls left… Due to the resilience of our warriors there, in Soledar, we have gained additional time and additional power for Ukraine,” Zelensky said on Monday. “And what did Russia want to gain there? Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no life left. And thousands of their people were lost: The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes. This is what madness looks like.”
The extent of the carnage raised questions about whether Ukrainian leaders expended too many men in the battle.
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“It’s not me. It’s King Leonidas who figured out that you should fight the enemy on the terrain that is advantageous to you,” a Ukrainian commander in Bakhmut told the Wall Street Journal. “So far, the exchange rate of trading our lives for theirs favors the Russians. If this goes on like this, we could run out.”