[ad_1]
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed Friday that its forces have seized control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, but a Ukrainian military official maintained that the battle for the salt mining town was not yet over.
Taking Soledar — a gateway to the embattled city of Bakhmut — would give Moscow its first significant gain after months of military setbacks. Ukrainian officials also disputed earlier assertions this week that Russian troops or the Wagner Group’s private military forces had captured the town.
Competing claims by the combatants have been a feature of the bloody, months-long fight in the eastern Donetsk region, a struggle that has intensified in recent days in Soledar. Nearly 600 residents — out of a prewar population of more than 10,000 — remained in the town trying to survive a “bloodbath,” according to one Ukrainian official. Here’s the latest on the war and its ripple effects across the globe.
4. From our correspondents
“Gerasimov, 67, an army general and deputy defense minister, has been chief of the General Staff for more than a decade and is a Kremlin insider who had a key role in planning the war,” she writes.
[ad_2]
Source link
