Array
Russia said on Friday that Ukrainian forces had attacked Russian positions along almost 100 km (60 miles) of the front line near Soledar, a small mining town near Bakhmut in eastern Ukraine that Moscow’s forces seized in January.
As anticipation grows of a Ukrainian counteroffensive aiming to drive Moscow’s forces out of the land they have seized in the last 15 months, Deputy Defence Minister Hanna Maliar confirmed earlier reports that Ukraine had made some gains near Bakhmut, but appeared to play down suggestions of a wider push.
The Russian Defense Ministry said 26 attacks involving over a thousand troops and up to 40 tanks near Soledar on Thursday had been repulsed. In one area, Russian forces had fallen back to “more favorable positions” near a reservoir northwest of Bakhmut.
Reuters was not able to verify the battlefield reports, and there was no immediate response from Kyiv, which during previous offensives has maintained strict silence about its operations while they were under way.
An attack at Soledar, just north of Bakhmut, would appear to substantiate reports by Russia’s Wagner private army that Kyiv was launching its offensive on the city’s north and south flanks, aiming to surround it. Earlier this week, a Ukrainian unit claimed to have routed a Russian brigade southwest of Bakhmut in Ukraine’s biggest advance for six months.
Wagner leader Yevgeny Prigozhin has said the flanks, guarded by regular troops, are crumbling, putting his group’s positions inside the city at risk. Russia’s defense ministry denied this.
