Here’s why Soledar is important to Russia

Russia stated Friday its forces had captured Soledar, a salt mine city in jap Ukraine, in what would characterize a symbolic if not strategic victory for Moscow after months of setbacks on the battlefield. Nevertheless, Kyiv refuted the declare.

Taking Soledar would additionally characterize a symbolic PR win for the person who runs Wagner – oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has regularly criticized the Russian Protection Ministry’s administration of the “Particular Navy Operation” in Ukraine.

The place is Soledar: The small lies on the heart of the Donbas area, the huge expanse of jap Ukraine whose seize Russia has prized above all different areas since final summer season. Certainly, Moscow regards it as Russian territory since claiming (illegally) that it had annexed all of Donetsk area – together with the roughly 40% that lies exterior Russian management.

It’s just some miles northeast of the bigger metropolis of Bakhmut, which has change into maybe probably the most contested and kinetic a part of the 1,300-kilometer (800 mile) entrance line in Ukraine and the scene of among the fiercest combating of the battle.

Why has Soledar been a goal? With a pre-war inhabitants of about 10,000, it has little strategic worth in itself, however is a waypoint within the Russians’ attritional slog westwards. Moscow has struggled for months to assault Bakhmut from the east, however had been it to seize Soledar, Moscow would a minimum of be capable of strategy town from a distinct path.

An eye fixed on salt mines: The realm round Soledar contains giant salt mines, which belong to state enterprise Artemsil, the largest producer of salt in Europe, which halted manufacturing shortly after Russia’s invasion final February. The realm surrounding the city hosts “in depth reserves of very pure salt which have solely been exploited on an industrial scale since 1881,” in accordance with the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Some have speculated that the Russians – and Wagner’s chief Prigozhin – have eyed Soledar for its enormous sources of gypsum. Prigozhin has used Wagner in Africa and Syria as a mercenary drive to leverage entry to sources together with diamonds and oil.

However exploiting Soledar’s famed salt mines would require heavy funding and a extra tranquil setting than at current. Prigozhin has stated the huge community of tunnels created by the mining gives “distinctive and historic defenses,” and a “community of underground cities.”

A win for Russia after a very long time: The Russian armed forces have had nothing to have fun because the starting of July, and have needed to retreat in each Kharkiv to the north and Kherson in southern Ukraine. The seize of Soledar, regardless of its now-ruined state, would subsequently be uncommon progress. However it will be symbolic somewhat than substantive.

CNN’s Seb Shukla contributed reporting to this submit.