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Western politicians, mass media and observers are monitoring the progress of hostilities in the area of ​​the city of Soledar in Donetsk region. As reported by the British Guardian newspaper with reference to the Deputy Minister of Defense of Ukraine, Hanna Malyar, Ukrainian forces are “holding on”, and “fierce fighting” continues in Soledar.

As the newspaper notes, Kyiv denies that Russian troops surrounded and captured Soledar, as stated by the head of the Wagner Group Yevhen Prigozhin, who said that the city fell under the blows of his mercenaries.

The head of the Pentagon: the US monitors the situation in Soledar, helps with weapons together with partners

US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said on Wednesday that he “cannot confirm this information”.

Answering journalists’ questions during the press conference, the head of the Pentagon said that the situation around Soledar is constantly changing, and the US is monitoring it.

“I have seen some of these reports, but the situation is fluid, the environment is dynamic, there is a dynamic struggle going on in the area. Several times the troops moved back and forth and it was really quite fierce fighting. But the Ukrainians continue to fight, a very determined fight,” Austin said.

The US Secretary of Defense said that the US is “doing everything possible” to enable Ukrainians to defend their territory.

“We are focused on doing everything we can to make sure that the Ukrainians have all the capabilities they need to successfully defend their sovereign territory,” Austin said, adding that a defense contracting group meeting in Germany next week, where about 50 ministers defense, will discuss “what Ukraine needs now and what it needs to achieve success in the future.”

“We have said over and over again that we will support Ukraine as long as it takes, and judging by everything I see from our allies and partners, they feel the same way, so we remain united in our efforts,” the American added. the Minister of Defense after the meeting with the Ministers of Defense and Foreign Affairs of Japan held in Washington in the 2×2 format with the participation of the US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken.

Blinken, in turn, added that Russian aggression creates challenges all over the world, including in Asia.

“This is not only a challenge for Ukraine, for the life and well-being of its people. This is a challenge to the entire rules-based international order, and to the very principles that underlie that order, which are so important in every part of the world – sovereignty, independence, territorial integrity, law,” Blinken said, adding that exactly therefore, Japan’s participation was very important and Japan “from day one has been a strong partner with us and many other countries in the effort to maintain this order.”

Zelensky: units in Bakhmut and Soledar “will be provided with ammunition and everything necessary promptly and without interruption”

The President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, said that the units in Bakhmut and Soledar will be supplied with ammunition and everything necessary “expeditiously and without interruption”. According to the results of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief Staff meeting, he wrote in Telegram that special attention was paid to the battles in Bakhmut and Soledar at this meeting.

Despite forecasts that winter will bring a pause in the intensity of hostilities, the fighting in Donbas in the Bakhmut district remains fierce, especially in the city of Soledar in the Bakhmut district.

Soledar has no strategic importance – General Hertling

Ukrainian and American military experts say that Soledar has no strategic importance, but is a testing ground for new Russian tactics and a confrontation within the Russian government.

“The fierce battle for the small town in Donbas, Soledar, is today the site of a new Russian tactic: sending groups of former prisoners over and over again, simply to die and be replaced by new groups. “Wagner Group” killer squads push them forward and shoot at them if they retreat,” Andriy Zagorodnyuk, the former Minister of Defense of Ukraine and now one of the experts of the “Atlantic Council”, writes on Twitter.

As the Voice of America previously reported, British intelligence has data that the Russian army has returned to the practice of “blocking troops” from the Second World War, when “these units threaten to shoot their own retreating soldiers in order to force them to go on the offensive.”

American general, former commander of US forces in Europe, retired general Mark Gertling in an interview with the CNN channel, he said that the battles for Soledar are more important for the balance of power in the power echelons in Moscow than on the battlefield.

“Possessing Soledar has no strategic advantage. This is a clash of personalities within Russia, the American general believes. – Gerasimov, Surovikin, Prigozhin, Mr. Putin, they have problems with the offensive on the entire front, which they sought from the beginning of this war. Soledar is not a strategically important city. Bakhmut south of Soledar is also not strategically important.

For Ukrainians, Soledar and Bakhmut, according to Hertling, have not so much strategic as psychological significance.

“Ukrainians understand that in order to regain territory in Donbas, they cannot allow the further advance of the Russian army or, in this case, the Wagner Group,” says the American general. – Ukrainians have a deep defense around these areas. They don’t want to give up a centimeter of land, so they are going to fight.”

According to him, even if the Russians take Soledar and Bakhmut, it could be a “Pyrrhic victory” that would not give Russia a great advantage on the battlefield.

“Wagner’s troops may eventually capture the city of Soledar, but if they do, it may be a purely tactical Pyrrhic victory, but a strategic success for Ukraine, which has been holding out for so long. It is similar to Mariupol,” the American general believes.

Attempts by the Russian army to seize Mariupol led to its almost complete destruction, civilian casualties are estimated at tens of thousands of people.

The blockade of Mariupol began in early March 2022 and lasted more than three months, preventing Russian forces from launching an offensive against Kyiv and other key Ukrainian cities. The city, in which, according to the city authorities, a humanitarian disaster is ongoing, remains fully occupied.