Russia is building up its forces in Ukraine, a senior Ukrainian defence official said on Thursday, as Moscow’s forces struggle on in their bid to capture a small salt-mining town in the east that has largely been reduced to rubble.
The battle over Soledar has become emblematic of Moscow’s laboured and costly offensive in eastern Ukraine. After days of intense street fighting, uncertainty over which side controlled the town of Soledar in Donetsk province remained on Thursday, though there was no doubt about the devastation that had been wrought.
Images released by the satellite company Maxar showed a score of apartment buildings and houses shattered beyond repair. Ukraine’s deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said that “Russia is building up its forces in Ukraine but Ukrainian forces are holding out in fierce fighting for control of the eastern town of Soledar.”
Citing the country’s intelligence service, she said that Russia was moving troops trained in Belarus and Russia to the combat zone to focus on Donetsk and Luhansk provinces. Soledar and a number of other locations in the Bakhmut region “were subject to tank, mortar, barrel and rocket artillery attacks”, according to an update from Ukraine’s General Staff of the Armed Forces.
A staff bulletin claimed that about 100 Russian soldiers had been killed by Ukrainian special forces.
New York Times News Service
