After the Russian defense ministry announced the capture of Soledar in the Donetsk region on Thursday, Kiev has now rejected the claims. The Ukrainian General Staff declares that the fighting for the Salt City is still ongoing. A series of explosions were heard in Kiev on Saturday morning. The military administration asked the residents to stay in shelters.
Residents of Kiev heard multiple explosions in the capital around 9am on Saturday, according to The Kyiv Independent. The Ukrainian news agency Ukrinform announced that critical infrastructure had been hit.
According to the presidential office, a residential building in the Kiev region was also hit, but there was initially no information about possible victims. It was the first major rocket attack since the turn of the year.
Kiev mayor Vitali Klitschko reported that there had been explosions in the Dniprovskyi district on the eastern bank of the Dnipro. Other regions were also attacked, including Kharkiv and Zaporizhia.
The battle for Soledar is not yet decided
The fighting for the salt city of Soledar is also still ongoing, according to the Ukrainian General Staff. Russia had already claimed on Thursday and Friday that Russian troops had already taken the area without acknowledging the role of the private mercenary group Wagner. Kyiv denies the allegations.
The Wagner Group is Russia’s best-known mercenary group and was founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin, a Russian oligarch, Putin confidant and former convict. Together with the Russian army, the group took part in the battles of Soledar and Bakhmut in the eastern Donetsk region.
Conflicts behind closed doors
According to the ISW, several prominent Russian military bloggers, including those with ties to the Kremlin, have stated that there is a conflict “behind closed doors and in the information space” between the Russian Defense Ministry and Prigozhin.
A military blogger close to the Kremlin claimed that both sides are equally trying to undermine each other and accused Prigozhin of not acknowledging the involvement of Russian troops on the battlefield, ISW wrote.
Source: Krone
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