understand the battle of Soledar, a lock in the Donbass, which Russia claims to have taken

In eastern Ukraine, the town of Soledar, which the Russian mercenaries of the Wagner group announced the capture on Tuesday, January 10, has clearly become the priority objective of the Russian forces. His army is now concentrating its best troops and significant material resources there, whereas they were previously focused on Bakhmout, 10 kilometers further south, on the front line. On Friday, Russia claimed responsibility for this decision after fierce fighting, before the information was immediately denied by the spokesman for the eastern command of the Ukrainian army.

Without acknowledging the loss of the city, the Ukrainian forces nevertheless admit to being in great difficulty there. On the Russian side, they seemed determined to take it at all costs, even at the cost of very heavy losses. Why did this modest, largely razed locality, which had barely 11,000 inhabitants before the start of the conflict, become so important in the eyes of Moscow strategists and Wagner’s auxiliaries? “Everything is completely destroyed. There is almost no more life. What is Russia trying to gain there? »asked himself on Monday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.

After a long series of defeats, particularly in the oblasts of Kharkiv and Kherson, the Russian army is obviously trying to finally snatch a victory, however modest it may be. She had been trying for six months to seize Bakhmout, but the Ukrainian forces were defending her so fiercely that she had to fall back on Soledar. Beyond the symbolic stake, the seemingly insignificant small town could play an essential role in the continuation of the war, and this for multiple reasons, at the same time geographical, strategic, tactical, even commercial and political.

Force the lock to open the road to Sloviansk

The Russian army suffered, since the spring, defeat after defeat. Its objective is no longer to bring kyiv to heel, but to avoid humiliation by at least completing the conquest of Donbass, a highly industrialized region which would be a major catch for Moscow. The Donetsk coal basin consists of Luhansk and Donetsk oblasts. Russia has recognized the independence of the “people’s republics” there. unilaterally proclaimed by pro-Russian separatists on the spot in 2014, before annexing them at the end of September 2022.

While Russian forces and local separatists have held almost all of Luhansk since the summer, the Ukrainian army has taken over a good part of that of Donetsk, where Sloviansk and Kramatorsk are located, two cities with more than 100 000 inhabitants. The conquest of Soledar would allow them not only to tighten the siege of Bakhmout but also to cut off the supply routes of the Ukrainian forces defending it; they would already be under fire from Russian artillery, which could hasten the fall of the city. Once the lock of Bakhmout-Soledar is forced, the road to Sloviansk opens, via Kostiantynivka, Druzhkivka and Kramatorsk from the west, or via Siversk from the north.

A military, commercial and political objective

If Soledar is so important, however, it is not only for its geographical location. The city owes its name to a now abandoned salt mine, which offered prime protection to combatants and their equipment. Its galleries, which extend over 200 kilometers, also run under the front line, which would allow the Russians to infiltrate behind the Ukrainian lines.

For Evgueni Prigojine, founder of the Wagner group, the mine would also have a commercial interest, just like the gypsum deposits in the sector. The businessman, who has already instructed his mercenaries to seize mining sites in Sudan, the Central African Republic and Mali to exploit them for his benefit, said on Monday that that of Soledar would be ” the icing on the cake “. This “network of underground cities” located at a depth of about a hundred meters, where, according to him, a quantity of weapons from the First World War would be stored, constitutes “unique and historical defences”he pointed out, on January 7, to justify taking it.

On the political level, taking possession of it would finally allow him to take advantage of the feat that the Russian army is vainly trying to obtain and to mark a crucial point in its struggle for influence with the duo Sergei Shoigu-Valéri Guerassimov, Minister of defense and chief of staff, increasingly challenged by the proliferation of military setbacks. Sign that the credit of the second is not completely exhausted, he has just taken command of the troops deployed in Ukraine.

“Fixing” Ukrainian forces, an increasingly pressing imperative

Evgueni Prigojine’s determination is such that he does not hesitate to sacrifice his men in large numbers. “After a failed attempt to conquer Soledar, the enemy withdrew, regrouped, re-formed and changed tactics to launch a new full-scale assault”, summed up the Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister. Going forward, added Hanna Maliar, “the enemy literally walks over the bodies of his own soldiers”. Like the battalions of refuseniks, conscientious objectors, whom the Red Army used as cannon fodder during the Second World War, the assault troops would notably be made up of common law prisoners pardoned in exchange for their engagement in the militia, whose life expectancy is very low.

Wagner’s mercenaries thus forced the Ukrainian army to maintain significant manpower and material resources in Bakhmout and Soledar. Monopolized by the defense of this eminently strategic zone for the fate of Donbass, the government forces cannot regain the initiative on other fronts. Like the battle of Verdun in 1916, the battle brought the conflict back to the war of position, which prevailed this summer, before the counter-offensives of Kharkiv and Kherson.

“The situation around Soledar and Bakhmout forces our command to employ more resources there, so there may not be enough to carry out a major offensive in the south, from Zaporizhia or elsewhere”acknowledged Ihor Levchenko, head of strategic modeling at the Ukrainian think tank New Geopolitics. ” To stare “ thus the Ukrainian army has become all the more important for Moscow as kyiv awaits the light armored vehicles recently promised by France, the United States and Germany, weapons which could enable it to give new impetus to the reconquest of the occupied territories.

A decisive battle?

The nature of the fighting in the area has certainly changed recently, with Wagner’s new tactics, but it has been going on since the summer, which has enabled the Ukrainian forces to deploy an imposing defensive system on the outskirts of the city that the Russians will have had to hard to push, even if the two cities fall.

According to Vincent Tourret, a member of the Foundation for Strategic Research and a specialist in the Russian army, “The capture of Bakhmout will not lead to a Ukrainian collapse. The defense lines of the kyiv army are well organized in this region and the Russians no longer have enough maneuvering capabilities there”he said to the World January 10. The gradual arrival of conscripts mobilized in September could, however, increase their room for manoeuvre. kyiv and its allies also suspect Moscow of preparing a new large-scale mobilization which could radically change the situation.