Two days ago, occupying Russian troops reported the capture of Soledar, but today, it seems, Russia has entered an information stupor. Instead of the usual reports about the total victory, there were statements that they were a bit hasty with the capture of Soledar. In turn, the Armed Forces of Ukraine, both before and now, deny Russia’s reports about the alleged occupation of this town both in words and deeds.
Ukraine’s Ministry of Defense emphasizes that heavy fighting continues in Soledar. After suffering significant losses, Russia once again replaced its units and sent more Wagner troops to Soledar. Russian forces are trying to break through the defense of Ukrainian troops and completely capture the town, but are unsuccessful.
As for Russia’s advance, due to the concentration of a large number of assault groups and disregard for human losses, Russian troops entered the center of Soledar basically walking over corpses of their own soldiers.
Mass attacks on Soledar started around December 27. Soledar is located to the north of Bakhmut and the attack on Soledar is part of Russia’s offensive on Bakhmut, the city that Russia has been unable to capture for the last 6 months, trying to break through the AFU defense with frontal attacks.
It is important that in these frontline areas - both near Soledar and Bakhmut - Russian forces are estimated to have lost more manpower than during the storming of Severodonetsk and Lysychansk. This means that the Ukrainian army is conducting an effective defense aimed at inflicting maximum losses on the enemy near Bakhmut and Soledar. This sector of the front line remains extremely hot, so we are waiting for further information from the official spokespersons to draw reasonable conclusions.
Military analyst and serviceman of the AFU Special Operations Forces Viacheslav Tseluiko notes that Soledar is the left flank of the Bakhmut defense. Its importance for Russia is both of tactical and propaganda nature. Russian troops were going to capture Bakhmut by January 1, because they needed at least some military gains. And they have chosen a less significant target, which they are trying to capture despite losses, to present as a success.
Russia is now applying the experience of the Kaiser's army in 1918. During World War I, the German army began to use assault groups. Small but well equipped. Russia attacks with small units at different times, that is, there is no system on a wide section of the front line. In 9 out of 10 cases these attacks are unsuccessful. Russian forces try to attack not in one place where infantry forces could suffer heavy losses, but on the contrary - to attack in small groups on a wide front, hoping that the Ukrainian Armed Forces will not detect them.
Special operations forces are trying to seize the initiative. Because, if you give the enemy the initiative, sooner or later they will succeed. The tactics of Ukrainian defenders are aimed at intercepting the initiative from the enemy. And the enemy is forced to deploy additional forces to consolidate the positions they had captured. This reduces Russia’s initiative.
Volodymyr Kopchak believes that the threat from Belarus is at the level of promises given by Lukashenko to Putin. However, the fewer victories or the more defeats the Russian army suffers on different parts of the front line, the less likely Lukashenko is to keep his promise. Informally, Ukraine is sending messages to Belarus that there will be no more February 24 format, but there will be preemptive strikes. The case of Makiivka had a psychological impact on the Belarusian military audience.
Situationally, the threat of a potential offensive by Belarus, for example, on the Volyn region, quite effectively solves the Kremlin's main task to internationalize this war, as well as to restrain and disperse the Ukrainian Defense Forces. In addition, now there is no resistance in Belarus, because the active guerrillas have already been sentenced to 20 years. There are about 7,000-8,000 servicemen in Belarus who are loyal to Lukashenko and will execute the order. Especially if mixed units from Russia without insignia are created. But everything that happens in Belarus is clear to us, we know everything.
It's been a very interesting week in Ukraine: Poland promises us tanks, Britain promises us tanks, we are starting to master Patriot, Canada buys us NASAMS, but Georgia has become resistant to our proposal to provide Buk systems and Javelin. And it is clear that the refusal of the official Tbilisi is motivated not by money, but other things.
According to Volodymyr Kopchak, the head of the South Caucasus branch of the Center for Army, Conversion and Disarmament Studies, this is a moment of the paradigm in which official Kyiv and Tbilisi have been living in dive mode for 11 months. Because the sale of even one cartridge under any scheme is a political decision. Georgia is living in the paradigm of the Kremlin and "avoiding war.” Ukraine has appealed to Georgia for a wider nomenclature regarding the Buk system, and not recently, but in the first difficult weeks of the full-scale invasion.
And here it is necessary to explain the position of official Tbilisi, which is not unique, because there has been a deep belief that Kyiv will fall in the first 1o days and so on. At that time, half of the world did not believe in us, but now it is surprising that the manic and even semi-suicidal logic of official Tbilisi is not to believe that Russia can lose in principle. Also, for at least the last 10 years, Georgia has not been engaged in the policy of countering the aggressor of the so-called hybrid threats. The biggest paradox is that Georgians themselves are fully supporting Ukraine. And this position of the Georgian government is a marker of the strange relations between Ukraine and Georgia.