Ukrainian Hospitals Overflowing With Soledar Troops, Claims Russian Officer

Hospitals in Ukraine are full of troops who have been wounded in the bitter fight for a town in the Donetsk oblast, according to a Russian commander.

Vladimir Novikov told Tass that hospitals in the neighboring oblasts of Zaporizhzhia and Dnipropetrovsk "are really packed with the wounded, mostly from Soledar."

The Russian state news agency reported how he had said the Ukrainian army had suffered "huge losses" in the town located nine miles north of Bakhmut. He said Kyiv had sent its "most capable forces there," such as the 128th Mountain Assault Brigade.

The agency also reported Novikov had said it was hard to determine the exact losses because Ukraine had "sought to withhold information on killed troops."

There was "no single data" from Kyiv about losses, added Novikov, who goes by the code name Alabay and was described by Tass as commander of the Troy special forces volunteer unit. He didn't mention the numbers of Russian losses. Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment.

Losses are hard to gauge and both sides claim the other has faces depleted troop numbers. British defense officials said that both Moscow and Kyiv have "suffered high casualties." Both Kyiv and Moscow have also made claims about the status of the town near Bakhmut where fighting has raged for about five months.

Yevgeny Prigozhin, financier of the Wagner Group of mercenaries fighting for Moscow, said on Wednesday that his troops had taken control of Soledar, located around nine miles north of Bakhmut, but this claim was rejected by Ukraine.

Russian Defense Ministry Spokesman Lieutenant General Igor Konashenkov later said Russian forces had blocked Soledar from the north and south and fighting was ongoing.

Meanwhile, Andrei Bayevsky, a military figure and Russian-installed local politician in the Donetsk oblast, said "pockets of resistance" remained in the town although its western outskirts "are completely under our control."

Ukraine's deputy defense minister, Hanna Maliar, said that Kyiv's forces were "holding on" in the town, telling a news briefing on Thursday that Russia is building up its forces in Ukraine, increasing its military units from 250 a week ago to 280.

Ukraine's Special Operations Forces said on Thursday that more than 100 Russian troops had been killed in a Tochka-U missile attack on Soledar.

Satellite images from Maxar Technologies show the extent of the destruction caused by the fighting, with a school and agricultural buildings in the town among structures destroyed, with craters seen on the surrounding landscape.