The bloody battle of Soledar and how the mercenaries were key in the victory that Russia so needed

Russiathanks to the participation of the mercenaries of the wagner groupachieved his first great victory after half a year of setbacks against the forces ukrainian. “On December 12, the liberation of the city of solder”, said the spokesman of the Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov, on Friday.

The capture of soldera mining town of 10 thousand inhabitants known for its salt mines, located in Donetskeast of Ukraine, was considered “the bloodiest battle of the war”. Its importance for the Russians is due to the fact that they will now allow the supply routes of the Ukrainian troops to be cut off in bakhmuta city located 10 kilometers away, and that Moscow has been seeking to take over for months.

“The Russians literally marched over the bodies of their own soldiers, burning everything in their path”the governor of Donetsk, Pavlo Kyrylenko, had said on Thursday, depicting the crudeness of the operation.

The battles have been concentrated in Soledar and Bakhmut, in eastern Ukraine.

Although it is not known how many dead the fighting has left, in a single day a hundred Russian soldiers would have perished.

The Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister, Gannia Maliar, herself admitted days ago that the situation in solder it was difficult: “The fiercest and most intense fighting of the war is taking place here”he declared.

Nevertheless, Ukraine still points out that they continue to resist: “Our fighters are valiantly trying to maintain our defense”Maliar said on Friday.

“The strength of this battle is not so much a military victory, but the effect that this victory can have on the internal struggles that exist in Russia and that are demanding tangible results from Putin,” intelligence analyst Andrés Gómez de la Torre comments to this newspaper.

“As the war has slowed down, Russia was looking for a victory. This area is not of great strategic magnitude. This battle does not have a strategic value, but a high symbolic value”add.

Similarly, the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, has noted that the Kremlin has “overstated the importance of Soledar” Well, it’s not about “an operationally significant advance and unlikely to herald an imminent Russian encirclement on Bakhmut.”

Ukrainian soldiers walk on the front line near Soledar, in the Donetsk region. (AP Photo/Libkos) (LIBKOS/)

The role of the Wagner Group

The importance of this battle is focused on one important detail: was fought, mainly, by the mercenaries of the Wagner paramilitary group, led by a businessman close to the Kremlin, Yevgeny Prigozhin. The presence of mercenaries in the war is not new, but in the face of successive Russian military defeats, the fact that the Wagner group scores the conquest of Soledar empowers them even more.

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“This is an unusual battle but not surprising in the context of this war. On the Russian side there is a triple combination: the Russian army, which is present as a conventional force; the so-called Donbas separatist forces; and a third actor that is the Wagner Group, which represents the war of mercenaries and the privatization of security.adds De la Torre.

Evgeny Progozhin, founder of the Wagner Group, recruiting prisoners to fight in Ukraine. (Video capture).

Prigozhin, a very influential figure in the Kremlin, has toured Russian prisons in recent months to recruit prisoners, promising high salaries and amnesty after a certain time fighting.

Military analyst Anatoli Khramchijin tells AFP that Wagner’s role in Ukraine is key as the group has “a certain number of important advantages” over the regular Russian army: “better training and at the same time less formalities and less bureaucracy.” .

Gómez de la Torre also explains that in Russia a competition scenario has been set up between the regular armed forces and the outsourcing of security. “It is an internal competition for shares of power and strategic conceptions between the regular forces and the privatization of security promoted by the big Russian businessmen, who are behind the State”points out.

The analyst adds that the use of mercenaries – who also work for the Ukrainian side – leads to an increase in war crimes and human rights violations.

Source: Elcomercio