Kyiv, Ukraine – To analysts, if Moscow is ready to seize Soledar, a tiny salt-mining city in Ukraine’s war-scarred southeast, the “victory” can be little greater than a comfort prize for Russia’s failing army effort.
To the Kremlin and pro-Moscow separatists, although, taking the city with a pre-war inhabitants close to 10,000 can be a groundbreaking triumph.
And to Yevgeny Prigozhin, the top of Russia’s Wagner Group, a non-public military, Soledar affords entry to mineral riches, a stash of firearms and a better place within the Kremlin’s pecking order.
Prigozhin is called Russian President Vladimir Putin’s “chef” after changing into wealthy from authorities contracts to feed troopers, schoolchildren and visitors at state banquets.
For months, he has been making an attempt to grab the close by metropolis of Bakhmut – an essential logistical hub whose takeover would enable Russian and separatist forces to advance deep into southeastern Ukraine.
Regardless of numerous assaults, shelling and a reported lack of 1000’s of troopers, together with fighters who had been recruited from Russian jails, freshly mobilised reservists and forcibly conscripted males from separatist-held Ukrainian areas, the Wagner Group has didn’t decisively take Bakhmut.
This setback is very humiliating after a months-long collection of Russian defeats and retreats in japanese and southern Ukraine which have highlighted what some observers view as disorganised, badly coordinated and poorly motivated Russian forces.
So Moscow wants a victory – if not a strategic one, then at the very least one thing that may be trumpeted on Kremlin-controlled tv networks and reported to Putin.
“There’s a propaganda viewpoint – if Bakhmut [can’t be taken], then they should present at the very least one thing as a result of Prigozhin promised it to Putin,” Lieutenant Common Ihor Romanenko, former deputy chief of the Common Employees of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, informed Al Jazeera.
The “encircling” of Soledar was reported late on Tuesday and offered as a deed solely achieved by the Wagner military.
“I’d like to stress once more that no different army models besides the Wagner fighters [took] half within the storming of Soledar,” Prigozhin informed the Kremlin-funded RIA Novosti information company.
His press service then launched images allegedly taken within the salt mines beneath Soledar.
Ukraine’s army denied his claims.
Soledar’s takeover “is just not true”, spokesman Serhiy Cherevatyi informed Al Jazeera. “Look forward to an in depth report by the armed forces.
The press service of the Ukrainian Ministry of Defence mentioned the images had really been taken in Volodymyrivka, a separatist-controlled city within the japanese area of Donetsk.
And Prigozhin’s phrases in regards to the unique position of his military had been even disputed by the Russian Ministry of Defence, which mentioned on Wednesday that its paratroopers had “blocked” Soledar’s south and north and had been engaged in preventing within the city’s centre.
The Kremlin urged warning.
“Let’s not rush. Let’s await official bulletins,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov mentioned whereas describing a “constructive dynamic in advances” in Soledar.
In the meantime, a separatist chief hailed Soledar’s “takeover” as a step in the direction of gaining full management of Donetsk, components of which have been occupied by pro-Moscow rebels since 2014.
“It is a groundbreaking second,” Denis Pushilin informed the NTV tv community. “We’re getting ready the second we’ve been ready for, the liberation of the ‘Individuals’s Republic of Donetsk’.”
To different pro-Kremlin Russians, Soledar is a devastating Ukrainian lack of manpower and a private defeat for Kyiv’s commander-in-chief, Valerii Zaluzhnyi.
“Zaluzhny by no means counted losses anyway, however right here, he exceeded himself by herding 1000’s of troopers to die or be captured,” Herman Kulikovsky, a well-liked Russian army analyst, wrote on Telegram on Wednesday.
“Really, the Wagner troops didn’t simply destroy a big a part of Ukrainian forces who tried to maintain Soledar but additionally distracted part of the forces, reserves and – most significantly – the eye of Ukraine’s Common Employees from different entrance traces,” he wrote.
“If there isn’t any Soledar, there isn’t any Ukraine,” pro-Kremlin publicist Zakhar Prilepin mentioned on Telegram.
The city is actually key to seizing Bakhmut.
However what’s beneath and round it additionally affords an evidence as to why Wagner’s Prigozhin is so determined to manage the city and monopolise its takeover within the eyes of the Kremlin.
The salt mines beneath Soledar include a serious army prize, enormous depots of firearms courting again to World Struggle II.
Salt absorbs water and prevents rust, and Moscow started loading the mines with Nazi trophy weaponry and a whole lot of 1000’s of Soviet small arms within the late Fifties, based on Nikolay Mitrokhin, a historian with Germany’s Bremen College.
“That’s why the Ukrainian army deployed a battalion of particular forces there within the spring of 2014 and defended the mines from the Donetsk [separatist] militias thronging on the gates,” he informed Al Jazeera.
The depot could not have been totally evacuated as a result of its elevate can’t carry greater than a dozen crates to the floor at a time, he mentioned.
Soledar’s salt might be simply as priceless.
The city, whose title means “a present of salt”, as soon as offered as much as 40 p.c of the Soviet Union’s edible salt.
Earlier than the warfare, it provided about 90 p.c of salt in all of Ukraine, and hostilities across the city induced a spike in costs.
The city’s environs are additionally wealthy in alabaster, priceless clay for ceramics and coal.
And Prigozhin is thought for having enterprise pursuits that go far past sustaining a non-public military.
His fighters are understood to have reduce their enamel in Syria, serving to President Bashar Assad regain many of the war-torn nation.
Then Evro Polis, an organization Prigozhin controls, signed a deal to develop Syrian oil- and gasfields and restore vitality infrastructure, based on Russian and Western media experiences.
Some Wagner models relocated to the war-scarred Central African Republic and helped Prigozhin achieve management of the profitable commerce in “blood diamonds”, based on the France-based All Eyes on Wagner analysis group.
Other than Soledar, the southeastern area of Donbas is Ukraine’s treasure trove of mineral riches, metallurgical and chemical crops.
“Donbas is wealthy in uncooked supplies, and its industrial advanced may be utilised,” Aleksey Kushch, a Kyiv-based analyst, informed Al Jazeera.
“I feel a much more priceless prize is at stake – a spot in Russia’s political hierarchy,” Kushch mentioned, referring to Prigozhin’s ambitions to achieve extra clout inside the Kremlin.
