Ukraine says mining town holding out against Russian assault

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — The fate of a devastated salt-mining town in eastern Ukraine hung in the balance Wednesday as Ukraine said its forces were holding out against a furious Russian onslaught in one of the fiercest and costliest recent ground battles of the nearly 11-month war.

Soledar was under heavy shelling by Russian forces using jets, mortars and rockets. A Ukrainian military officer near Soledar said the Russian assault was unrelenting.

The Russians first send one or two waves of soldiers, many from the private Russian military contractor Wagner Group, who take heavy casualties as they probe the Ukrainian defenses, the officer told The Associated Press.

After those first assaults, when Ukrainian troops have taken some casualties and are exhausted, the Russians send a fresh wave of highly-trained soldiers, paratroopers or special forces, said the Ukrainian officer, who insisted on anonymity for security reasons.

Soledar's fall, while unlikely to provide a turning point in the war, would be a prize for a Kremlin starved of good news from the battlefield in recent months.

It would also offer Russian troops a strategic springboard for their efforts to conquer other areas of Donetsk province that remain under Ukrainian control, such as the nearby strategic city of Bakhmut.

Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province, which together make up the Donbas region bordering Russia, were Moscow's main stated targets in invading Ukraine, but the fighting has stood mostly at a stalemate.

Ukrainian Deputy Defense Minister Hanna Malyar denied Russian claims that Soledar had fallen, but she acknowledged heavy fighting was ongoing.

The spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, Serhiy Cherevaty, also dismissed the Russian claims.

Late Tuesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of...