Capture of Soledar Only 'Pyrrhic' Victory for Russia—ISW

Russia has "over exaggerated" the importance of the salt-mining town of Soledar in Ukraine and its capture would amount at best to a "Pyrrhic" tactical victory, according to the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

In its latest assessment of the war in Ukraine on Thursday, the ISW, a U.S.-based think tank, gave an overview of the battle for Soledar, which is located near the embattled city of Bakhmut in the Donbas region.

The Wagner Group, a mercenary organization founded by Russian billionaire Yevgeny Prigozhin in 2014, has reiterated this week that it had taken control of Soledar. Prigozhin said on Tuesday, however, that pockets of Ukrainian resistance were holding out in the center.

In a video address late on Thursday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked two units in Soledar that he said "are holding their positions and inflicting significant losses on the enemy," without elaborating.

And Hanna Maliar, deputy head of Ukraine's defense ministry, said in a statement on Telegram on Friday that fierce battles for Soledar are still ongoing.

"The night in Soledar was hot, and battles continued. The enemy has deployed almost all its main forces on the Donetsk front and keeps the intensity of the offensive high," said Maliar. "Ukrainian troops are "bravely trying to hold the defense."

The ISW assessed that Russian forces have likely captured Soledar, but noted that it is "not an operationally significant development and is unlikely to presage an imminent Russian encirclement of Bakhmut."

Russia's defense ministry hasn't announced that Russian forces have captured Soledar, but Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov congratulated Russian forces for successful offensive operations in the settlement, the ISW noted.

"Russian information operations have over exaggerated the importance of Soledar, which is at best a Russian Pyrrhic tactical victory," the think tank observed.

The ISW said it continues to assess that the capture of Soledar—a settlement smaller than 5.5 square miles—won't enable Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication (GLOCs) into Bakhmut, "nor better position Russian forces to encircle the city in the short term."

The think tank said Russian forces likely captured Soledar after committing "significant resources to a highly attritional tactical victory which will accelerate degraded Russian forces' likely culmination near Bakhmut."

"Russian forces may decide to maintain a consistently high pace of assaults in the Bakhmut area, but Russian forces' degraded combat power and cumulative exhaustion will prevent these assaults from producing operationally significant results."

Prigozhin said on his Telegram channel over the weekend that mines in Bakhmut and Soledar would benefit Russia's campaign in the war.

"The system of Soledar and Bakhmut mines, which is actually a network of underground cities, can not only [hold] a big group of people at a depth of 80-100 meters, but also tanks and infantry fighting vehicles, which can move about there," he wrote, referring to the network of salt mines, caves and 125 miles of tunnels.

Maliar said on Friday that "this is a difficult stage of the war," but that Ukraine will undoubtedly win.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's foreign ministry for comment.

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