SHAKHTERSK, January 13. /TASS/. A group of around 100 evacuees from the city of Soledar in the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) arrived in another DPR city, Shakhtersk, on Friday, a TASS correspondent reported.

According to the reporter, the group will be accommodated at temporary shelters in Shakhtersk. There are 108 people in the group, city authorities said.

Acting DPR head Denis Pushilin said earlier that he had signed a decree to put Bakhmutskoye and Yakovlevka, two recently liberated villages near Soledar, under the administrative jurisdiction of Shakhtersk city authorities.

On Monday, 60 Soledar residents were evacuated to a temporary shelter in the city of Torez.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Friday that Russian troops had liberated the city of Soledar, which saw heavy fighting in the past few days. According to Andrey Bayevsky, a member of the legislature of the Donetsk People’s Republic and a colonel of the People’s Militia, Soledar is important because control over the city opens the way for direct artillery fire on the road between Slavyansk and Artyomovsk, and allows the artillery to hit targets on the Artyomovsk axis. He described the capture of Soledar as an important step toward storming Artyomovsk.