MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. About five Ukrainian brigades have been wiped out in the city of Soledar, the Donetsk People’s Republic, but the statistics of losses may turn out to be higher when foreign mercenaries have been counted, military-political expert Yan Gagin, an adviser to the acting head of the DPR, said on the Rossiya-1 TV channel.

"About five brigades were destroyed there [in Soledar]. This information is quite objective, but the eventual figure for losses, I think, will be somewhat larger, because these losses do not include mercenaries. Quite a few of them were there," he said.

Gagin recalled that Soledar, like Artyomovsk, was a strategic transport hub.

"There were large amounts of ammunition in stock for the Ukrainian troops. I think that now our armed forces will get them," he said.

Russian businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin said on Wednesday that Soledar, where heavy fighting had been going on in recent days, was taken by the Wagner PMC fighters. Also on Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Russian troops had blocked Soledar from the north and the south and hostilities were in progress inside the city.