BREAKING: A spokesperson for Ukraine's eastern military command has released a statement following Russian claims that it has taken control of Soledar in eastern Ukraine Latest: 📺 Sky 501, Virgin 602, Freeview 233 and YouTube
A Moscow-installed official in Donetsk has said there were still"small pockets" of Ukrainian resistance inside Soledar after Russia claimed it had taken the eastern city.
"In general, the operation developed successfully and the western outskirts of Soledar are already completely under our control." Soledar is located in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in September. Taking control of Soledar would allow Russian forces"to cut supply lines for the Ukrainian forces" in the Donetsk city of Bakhmut and then"block and encircle the Ukrainian units there", Lt Gen Konashenkov said.The Wagner mercenary group, a Russian private military company operating in Ukraine, has posted a video directly disputing Moscow's claim that Russian military forces have participated in the assault on Soledar.
"I would like to emphasize that Soledar was taken exclusively by Wagner PMC units," he said in a statement published on a Wagner Telegram channel on Monday.Sky's Moscow correspondent Diana Magnay said the move suggested Putin was trying to consolidate the ministry's hold over an operation whose most recent successes, if Soledar can be counted as that, have been driven by freelancers, for example Evgeny Prigozhin and his band of Wagner mercenaries.
It comes after Germany said it has no plans to send any of its Leopard 2 tanks - which are heavier fighting vehicles than the Marder infantry vehicles it has agreed to supply.
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