MOSCOW, January 12. /TASS/. After taking control of Soledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR), the Russian military will beef up its troop strength on that front in order to liberate Artyomovsk (called Bakhmut in Ukraine), military-political expert Yan Gagin, adviser to the DPR leader, said.
"Now, following the taking of Soledar, rather serious forces will become available for Artyomovsk. Our armed forces will be bolstered precisely on that front to build on the successes already attained. Both Soledar and Artyomovsk are keys to Kramatorsk and the further advance, including Slavyansk. Both Slavyansk and Kramatorsk won’t be easy to storm because they [the Ukrainian army] were getting ready, all their forces retreated there and now they will boost their groups there," he told the Rossiya-1 TV channel on Thursday.
He added that these municipalities have morphed into fortress cities. "We will encounter similar fortress cities with a rather vast industrial zone and readied, multiple-layered defenses. Yet, by building on the triumphs now, I think, we will continue to be successful on that front in the future," the official said.
In the early hours on Wednesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, chief of Russia’s Wagner private military company, said that the city of Soledar was taken under control by the PMC’s units. On Wednesday, Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Igor Konashenkov reported that Russian troops blocked Soledar in the north and south and clashes in the city were underway.
Fierce fighting is in progress in the vicinity of Artyomovsk. Earlier, acting head of the DPR Denis Pushilin said that Russia’s forces were systematically working on cutting off the supply routes of a Ukrainian group in that region and surrounding it. According to him, capturing this city will pave the way to liberating the republic’s northern zone. That said, the DPR and LPR repeatedly reported that the Ukrainian command keeps redeploying reinforcements to the Artyomovsk front but the Ukrainian units there still suffer substantial losses.