Putin Taking Soledar Would Be a Hollow Victory

Soledar is currently the scene of heavy fighting in the ongoing war in Ukraine, but taking the town would offer little military or tactical benefits for Russian President Vladimir Putin's army, according to experts.

Soledar is located in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, not far from the city of Bakhmut, which has also been the scene of intense fighting for months. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Sunday that Ukraine was continuing to hold Soledar, even though it has been "completely destroyed" by Russian strikes.

But the U.K. Ministry of Defence wrote in its daily intelligence update on Ukraine Tuesday that Russian forces and troops with the mercenary Wagner Group had made tactical advances into Soledar over the past few days and are now "likely in control of most of the settlement."

If Russia soon claims all of Soledar, the benefits of doing so are "limited," William Reno, a professor and chair of the political science department at Northwestern University, told Newsweek.

"That battle is part of the larger fight for Bakhmut," Reno said. "Russian capture of either might even out their front line but would not represent a significant strategic victory or improve their long-term prospects elsewhere in Ukraine."

The importance of the battles for both Bakhmut and Soledar is political, Reno added. For Russia, seizing them would further Putin's goal of occupying all of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine, while Ukraine also has a "political stake" in Bakhmut comparable to its long efforts to hold the Donetsk city of Mariupol that ultimately fell under Russian control in May of last year.

"Occupying these towns would play to Putin's stated aim of occupying all of Donbas," Reno said. "The Ukrainians have a political stake too, giving Bakhmut the sort of weight it did to Mariupol. The fact that both sides treat the battle as important makes it important, despite the relatively low strategic importance of these places."

Dan Soller, a former U.S. Army intelligence colonel, told Newsweek that he believes the tactical benefit of taking Soledar would be limited, but Russia's push to seize it could stem from its struggles in Bakhmut. Soledar is located several miles northeast of Bakhmut.

"I always say water finds its course. So if you can't succeed by going through the front door, you go through the back door, in this case Soledar," Soller said. He added that since Russia has had trouble frontally attacking Bakhmut, what Russia appears to be doing in its Soledar effort is cutting off Bakhmut's lines of communication.

Like with Soledar, experts have assessed that Bakhmut has little to offer Russia tactically as the long fight expends manpower, ammunition and other resources. At the same time, after facing a string of military setbacks in Ukraine in recent months, Russia "needs something to develop a narrative of where the war is going," said Michael Kimmage, a history professor at the Catholic University of America.

"For the morale of soldiers, for the domestic population, there's a need for something that can be called a win," Kimmage told Newsweek, adding that he believes Bakhmut has come into focus as something that can offer such a win.

Newsweek reached out to Russia's Defense Ministry for comment.