CNN
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Russia said Friday its forces had captured Soledar, a salt mine town in eastern Ukraine, as Kyiv rejected the claims.

Should Russian troops indeed take the town, it would mark Moscow’s first gain in the Donbas for months – potentially offering President Vladimir Putin some welcome news after a recent string of humiliating setbacks on the battlefield.

The significance of Soledar in military terms is minimal. However, its capture, if confirmed, would allow Russian forces, and especially the Wagner mercenary group, to turn their focus on nearby Bakhmut, which has been a target since the summer.

Taking Soledar would also represent a symbolic PR win for the man who runs Wagner – oligarch Yevgeny Prigozhin, who has frequently criticized the Russian Defense Ministry’s management of the “Special Military Operation” in Ukraine.

Here’s what you need to know about Soledar.

As has often been the case with battlefield gains and losses, there are conflicting reports from Russian and Ukrainian sides about the success of Russia’s advance into the town.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the capture of Soledar “became possible due to the constant destruction of the enemy by assault and army aviation, missile troops and artillery of a group of Russian forces.” 

“They continuously inflicted concentrated strikes on the positions of the Armed Forces of Ukraine in the city, forbidding the transfer of reserves, the supply of ammunition, as well as attempts by the enemy to retreat to other lines of defense,” a statement read.

The Russian MOD made no reference to Wagner claims that the private military company had conducted the operation exclusively themselves.  

“The complex of measures implemented by the Russian group of troops ensured the successful offensive operations of the assault detachments to liberate Soledar. Over the past three days alone, more than 700 Ukrainian servicemen and over 300 units of weapons of the Armed Forces of Ukraine have been destroyed near the city of Soledar,” the ministry added.

The Ukrainian armed forces meanwhile told CNN that “Russian troops do not control Soledar.”

In a short call with CNN Serhii Cherevatyi, spokesman for Eastern Group of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that “battles are ongoing there. The Armed Forces of Ukraine and other defense forces are regrouping.”

He described the suggestion that Russian forces control and surrounded Soledar as an “information operation.” He also called out Prigozhin for “staging” a photo that claimed to show him in a local salt mine. Prigozhin said late on Tuesday night that Wagner forces were in total control of the town.

Cherevatyi added that Ukrainian forces were supplying troops with ammunition and food, describing the situation as “under control.” He added options to “improve the tactical situation were being looked for.”

A CNN team just outside of Soledar reported ongoing mortar and rocket fire on Friday. Ben Wedeman and team, who are positioned about 2.5 miles from the city, on Friday witnessed Ukrainian forces ferrying troops out, in what appears to be a fairly organized pull-back. There was no sense of panic among Ukrainian troops, Wedeman said.

Soledar lies at the center of the Donbas region, the vast expanse of eastern Ukraine whose capture Russia has prized above all other regions since last summer. Indeed, Moscow regards it as Russian territory since claiming (illegally) that it had annexed all of Donetsk region – including the approximately 40% that lies outside Russian control.

It is just a few miles northeast of the larger city of Bakhmut, which has become perhaps the most contested and kinetic part of the 1,300-kilometer (800 mile) front line in Ukraine and the scene of some of the fiercest fighting of the war.

Soledar has therefore been a target for Russian forces since last May. With a pre-war population of about 10,000, it has little strategic value in itself, but is a waypoint in the Russians’ attritional slog westwards. Moscow has struggled for months to attack Bakhmut from the east, but were it to capture Soledar, Moscow would at least be able to approach the city from a different path.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Friday that the capture of the town is “important for the continuation of successful offensive operations in the Donetsk region.”

The ministry added that “establishing control over Soledar makes it possible to cut off the supply routes for Ukrainian troops in Bakhmut.”

The area around Soledar includes large salt mines, which belong to state enterprise Artemsil, the biggest producer of salt in Europe, which halted production shortly after Russia’s invasion last February. The area surrounding the town hosts “extensive reserves of very pure salt that have only been exploited on an industrial scale since 1881,” according to the European Route of Industrial Heritage.

Some have speculated that the Russians – and Wagner’s leader Prigozhin – have eyed Soledar for its huge resources of gypsum. Prigozhin has used Wagner in Africa and Syria as a mercenary force to leverage access to resources including diamonds and oil.

But exploiting Soledar’s famed salt mines would require heavy investment and a more tranquil environment than at present. Prigozhin has said the vast network of tunnels created by the mining offers “unique and historic defenses,” and a “network of underground cities.”

The Russian armed forces have had nothing to celebrate since the beginning of July, and have had to retreat in both Kharkiv to the north and Kherson in southern Ukraine.

The capture of Soledar, despite its now-ruined state, would therefore be rare progress. But it would be symbolic rather than substantive. The Institute for the Study of War (ISW) says control of Soledar “will not necessarily allow Russian forces to exert control over critical Ukrainian ground lines of communication into Bakhmut,” the larger prize.

“Even taking the most generous Russian claims at face value, the capture of Soledar would not portend an immediate encirclement of Bakhmut,” the think tank added.

But Soledar is of outsize significance to one man: Prigozhin. His Wagner fighters, many of them former prison inmates, have taken heavy casualties with one wave after another of ground assaults across what has become a battlefield of trenches and mud, reminiscent of World War I. After months in which the Russian Ministry of Defense has delivered nothing but retreat, Prigozhin is keen to show that his men deliver.

Late Tuesday, Prigozhin said “Wagner PMC detachments have taken control of the entire territory of Soledar. The city center is like a cauldron, where urban fighting is taking place.” And he added: “I would like to stress that no units other than Wagner PMC operatives were involved in the storming of Soledar.”

The subtext of Soledar is the battle for influence and resources between Prigozhin and his nemeses at the Defense Ministry, which is intensifying as Prigozhin continues to deride what he calls the corrupt and incompetent military hierarchy.

The Ukrainian tactic could be to invite wave after wave of infantry attacks, knowing they can inflict heavy casualties on the enemy, a tactic used with success in Vuhledar late last year. Ukraine’s command would then choose a moment to withdraw to Bakhmut.

Ukraine’s 46th Brigade alluded to this tactic in an online post on Tuesday, saying, “The situation is very difficult, but manageable: we only abandon what we consider inexpedient to keep.” Trying to hold Soledar – like trying to hold Lysychansk, the last holdout in the Luhansk region, last summer – becomes inexpedient when casualties rise and resupply becomes near impossible.

Ukraine has defense in depth throughout the parts of Donetsk it still holds – and has forced the Russians to expend huge amounts of munitions to make marginal progress.