Soledar would be a strategic victory for Russia

Russia recently announced that it had captured large parts of Soledar in the Donetsk region. Ukraine's government has described the situation there as "very difficult." Fighting continues. Ukraine's government has sent reinforcements in an apparent effort to regain lost territory. Should they fail, Soledar would become the first city captured by Russia in the Donbas coal region since summer.

Soledar's location, roughly 15 kilometers (9 miles) northeast of Bakhmut, the district administrative center, makes it extremely important from a military standpoint. Both Soledar and Bakhmut city have been under constant assault since Russia launched its military invasion on February 24, 2022. Russian troops, especially mercenaries from the private militia outfit known as the Wagner Group, have been trying to take Bakhmut since summer. Their initial progress was slow but that changed dramatically in January. Should Soledar fall, the threat that Bakhmut could be encircled would grow exponentially.

Bakhmut, which was known by the name Artemivsk — after Comrade Artyom, Communist leader and close friend of Josef Stalin — from 1938 to 2016, is also of key strategic importance. The city lies on the E40 highway, halfway between Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, and Rostov-on-Don, in Russia. Taking Bakhmut would give Russian troops a straight shot westward to cities such as Kramatorsk — an important industrial and administrative city in the Donetsk region still under the  control of Ukrainian forces. Russian President Vladimir Putin called the capture of the entire region one of the main objectives of the invasion. Only 50 kilometers (30 miles) separate Bakhmut from Kramatorsk. But Ukraine's army has established several lines of defense along the stretch; thus, many experts in Ukraine and abroad say the fall of Bakhmut would not necessarily be immediately decisive.

Bakhmut is the city to which Ukrainian troops retreated in the winter of 2015, after losing the strategically important transportation hub Debaltseve to Russia-backed separatists. Previously, in the autumn of 2014, a control center shared by Russian and Ukrainian troops, as well as the intergovernmental Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe was established at Soledar. This was done to allow observers to monitor and coordinate the ceasefire outlined in the so-called Minsk agreement. The ceasefire was never fully established and Russia withdrew its representatives in 2017.

Soledar's salt mines

Soledar is world-famous for its salt mines. Table salt has been mined in the city since the end of the 19th century, when the area was part of the Russian Empire. The settlement was declared a city in its own right in 1965 and was called Karlo-Libknekhtovsk, after the co-founder of the Communist Party of Germany. The city has been known by the name Soledar — meaning the "gift of salt" in Russian — since 1991. Before the invasion, more than 10,000 people lived in the city. Seven times as many lived in Bakhmut. Both cities were controlled by Russia-backed separatists in early 2014 but were later liberated by Ukrainian forces.

Prior to the invasion, the Soledar-based state-owned company Artemsil supplied 90% of Ukraine's salt. Work ceased when Russian troops invaded, and now Ukraine is forced to import salt from abroad. Before the war, the city's salt mines were a huge tourist magnet. There were subterranean tours 200-300 meters (660-990 feet) below the city. The total length of Soledar's underground tunnels is estimated at about 300 kilometers. One tunnel is particularly impressive — it is 30 meters high, 14 meters wide and about a kilometer long.

Deep beneath the surface of Soledar, one can find a museum, a church, a symphony hall, a soccer field, sculptures made of salt crystals and a sanitarium for up to 100 respiratory illness patients.

Bakhmut, too, boasts underground tunnels, where sparkling wine is made according to classic recipes in former chalk mines about 70 meters below the surface. The grapes for the beverage came from the Crimean Peninsula before Russia illegally annexed it in 2014. Until 2022, Bakhmut was home to one of Eastern Europe's largest sparkling wine manufacturers, which produced more than 25 million bottles annually. That, too, however, ceased after Russian troops invaded in February.

This article was originally written in German.