The Defense Forces of Ukraine withdrew from Soledar in Donetsk region in order to preserve the lives of personnel.
The spokesman of the Eastern group of troops of the Armed Forces of Ukraine Serhiy Cherevaty informed Suspilne about this.
"We established ourselves on pre-prepared defense lines. They accomplished the main task: they did not allow the enemy to systematically break through in Donetsk direction of the front, go to the rear, and then move to the operational space. They took out the maximum number of forces, primarily the personnel, and exhausted the enemy," he noted.
According to Cherevaty, the front line in Soledar was leveled: there was no encirclement or capture of Ukrainian soldiers.
"We are trying to maneuver, hit with fire, use tactics of small groups in order to exhaust the enemy as much as possible," Cherevaty noted and added that Russia wants to draw attention to "the small town of Soledar against the background of the fact that before that the enemy suffered significant defeats in Kyiv region, in Kharkiv region operation, Lyman, Kherson".
Soledar is a small town by the standards of Donbas — about 10 000 people lived there before the full-scale invasion. There are private buildings almost everywhere, only in the center of the city, where the salt mines and the state enterprise "Artemsil" are located, there are several high-rise buildings.