09 Jan: Russians Make a Very Costly Move - Reporting from Ukraine

[TexasTowelie]

Day 320: January 09

Today there are a lot of updates from Soledar. The Wagner mercenaries that are responsible for storming Soledar received an order to storm the city nonstop. After a series of major unsuccessful advances, the Russians immediately made another attack, which caught everyone by surprise because they launched in between three Ukrainian fire positions. Such a risky move has already cost them an extremely high casualty rate because the attacks are so intense that the surrounding area is scattered with bodies, forcing them to walk around them or step over because no break is given to collect them.

While the Ukrainians concentrated their forces and attention to the north and south of the settlement, the Russians threw another attack fist right in the center. Ukrainian Deputy Minister described the latest developments in Soledar and said that after an unsuccessful attempt to capture Soledar and retreat from the northern and southern areas, the enemy regrouped and launched a powerful assault. Other officials said that the Wagner forces did not regroup and just deployed a large number of new assault groups formed from the best reserves of the Wagners.

It is still unclear where exactly the Wagners managed to slip through. From the information available right now, it seems like the Russians have fixed Ukrainian troops to the north and east and slipped through the gardens. It looks like the Ukrainians assumed that they had enough control over the region by controlling the tall buildings to the north and the countryside to the east, so this gap in between remained less protected. If this is indeed the case, then it was a huge mistake on the part of the Ukrainians. The Wagners conducted an extremely risky move because they basically put themselves in a crossfire. The Wagners entered these small blocks, which are basically in between the tall residential area, salt mines, and the countryside. This move just shows how much risk the Wagners are forced to take.

It was said that the Wagners received an order to keep up the momentum of continuous assaults and advance at all costs, and with almost 40 thousand prisoners used as cannon fodder, they can clearly afford it. Local footage indicates that there was simply no time to remove the bodies, so the Warnegrs are literally advancing over the corpses of their soldiers that were killed in the previous waves of assaults. The Russians have heavily concentrated their artillery fire and airstrikes in this region, which allowed the Wagners to enter the city from the east. Interestingly, some Ukrainian officials also reported that the Russians did not expect to enter the outskirts so quickly, so they suffered the fire from their own artillery. Previously, we observed something similar in Opytne – the Wagners push incredibly intensely up until the breaking point. Then they suddenly stop, as their combat capability has been undermined.

Overall, Soledar has suddenly become the center of attention of both armies. After the failed attempt to take Bakhmut in front, the Wagner forces got a chance to prove that they could take cities in Soledar. The Head of the Wagner forces, Prigozhin, is likely trying to capitalize on the tactical retreat from the eastern outskirts that the Ukrainians conducted a week ago. The goals here are to use the momentum and psychological pressure to force the Ukrainians to retreat because, in this case, he can take the credit for every meter that they capture. That is why the Wagners received an order to storm the city nonstop, and that is why they are using extremely risky tactics. If the Ukrainians manage to withstand these attacks and continue to conduct their counterattacks timely, the Wagners will burn their reserves and will have to decrease the intensity of their attacks very soon.

[SheltieLover]

1. Kicking for visibility