Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday publicly called bullshit on Putin’s “chef” crony Yevgeny Prigozhin’s claim his Wagner Group mercenaries had taken a key town in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, with Kremlin officials saying fighting in Soledar was still ongoing and that a photo Prigozhin had posted Tuesday with his mercs was not actually taken in the town, the Daily Beast reports.
The Defense Ministry even went so far as to side with Kyiv on the status of Soledar, a salt-mining town considered a key gateway to the larger city of Bakhmut. Ukrainian officials said Wednesday the fighting there has been the “bloodiest” of the war so far. A Russian win on the ground in the region – part of territory “annexed” by Russia – would be their first real advance in Ukraine since early last summer, as Bakhmut has been held by Ukrainian troops since the Donetsk rebellion in 2014.