Russia conducts daily military personnel reshuffles
2023.01.12 02:48
Russia conducts daily military personnel reshuffles
By Tiffany Smith
Budrigannews.com – The Russian private military firm Wagner Group claimed that it had successfully captured the salt mining town of Soledar in eastern Ukraine, despite the Ukrainian military stating that the battle was not over. Meanwhile, Moscow has appointed a new commander for its invasion of Ukraine.
On Wednesday, Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov was appointed by Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu as overall commander of Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine, which is now in its 11th month.
General Sergei Surovikin, who was appointed to lead the invasion and oversaw heavy attacks on Ukraine’s energy infrastructure only in October, was effectively demoted as a result of the change.
In the meantime, Wagner’s chief Yevgeny Prigozhin, a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, claimed that after intense fighting, his troops had captured Soledar in its entirety and killed approximately 500 Ukrainian soldiers.
In a statement, Prigozhin stated, “I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar.”
He stated, “The corpses of Ukrainian soldiers are all over the city.”
On Wednesday, U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters that he could not confirm reports that Soledar was in the hands of the Russians.
Pavlo Kyrylenko, governor of Donetsk, stated to Ukrainian state television that the ongoing fighting prevented the evacuation of 559 civilians, including 15 children, from Soledar. Before the war, the town had around 10,500 people living there.
The situation in Soledar was not independently verified by Reuters.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the president of Ukraine, mocked Wagner’s previous claims that he had seized a portion of Soledar, but he did not immediately respond to the most recent claims.
Zelenskiy stated in a video address, “The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend that part of our town of Soledar… is some sort of a Russian possession.” But the fighting goes on.”
In a Facebook statement (NASDAQ:), According to the general staff of the Ukrainian military, Russian forces were suffering significant losses as they attempted to seize Soledar and cut Ukrainian supply lines.
The Ukrainian military command mentioned tanks and artillery in the Soledar region in its Thursday morning roundup of frontline reports, but provided no additional details.
After a series of retreats before Ukrainian counter-offensives in the east and south, Russia has struggled to establish control over the town, which would be Russia’s most significant gain since August.
According to Oleh Zhdanov, a Ukrainian military analyst, the situation in Soledar was “approaching that of critical.”
“The armed forces of Ukraine are maintaining their positions. We are in charge of about half of the town. On YouTube, he stated, “Fierce fighting is taking place near the town center.”
However, Zhdanov stated to Ukrainian television that it would be more of a political than a military victory if Russian forces seized Soledar or the nearby Bakhmut.
Zhdanov stated, “There is more politics than war here.”
He stated, “The Russians will try to put the event on par with capturing Berlin if they take one of these towns, and they will use it for propaganda purposes as much for the outside market as for domestic consumption.”
“They will have the opportunity to uplift the spirits of conscripts and society as a whole inside Russia. To bring them all together…” Ukraine’s military command said on Thursday that Russia was looking for former soldiers and police officers to join paramilitary groups in Crimea, which Moscow annexed in 2014.
According to a statement released by the Russian Defense Ministry, the most recent reorganization of the command structure was intended to enhance communication among the various military branches and the efficiency of the structure.
According to a well-known military blogger who writes under the name Rybar and makes posts on the messaging app Telegram, Surovikin was being made the victim of recent Russian military mishaps. Among these was a Ukrainian attack on a Russian barracks over the holiday season that resulted in the deaths of at least 89 Russian soldiers.
After Ukrainian offensives turned the tide of the war and brought attention to Russian forces’ poor training, equipment, and morale, Surovikin was given the order to lead the campaign.
Soledar’s capture by pro-Russian forces would be a first step toward Moscow’s goal of capturing the industrial region of the eastern Donbass in Ukraine. The town would serve as a base from which to launch an assault on the nearby city of Bakhmut, a supply line hub in eastern Ukraine whose defenders have resisted for months.
The Kremlin did not declare victory prior to Wagner’s most recent statement, but it did acknowledge significant casualties.
“Don’t rush; wait for official announcements. Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Kremlin, stated, “There is a positive dynamic in progress.”
In recent days, a Reuters photographer who reached the town’s outskirts reported that many residents had fled the cold town. She stated that the town was covered in smoke and that the approaching artillery fire was unrelenting.
A photograph on the militia’s Telegram channel appeared to show Prigozhin and his fighters inside a mine, as reported by the Russian state news agency RIA earlier.
One of the two British voluntary aid workers who had been reported missing in eastern Ukraine was found dead, according to Wagner’s separate statement. The dead man’s name was not mentioned. The two workers who went missing were identified by passports that appeared to be in the picture.
On February 24, Russia sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine, claiming that Kyiv’s close ties to the West and plans to join NATO posed a threat to its safety. Moscow is accused by Kyiv and its allies of starting an unprovoked war to take territory from a neighbor it used to control in the former Soviet Union.
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