British intelligence said that the Russian army and the Wagner Group have made progress in Solidar in eastern Ukraine and are likely to take control of most of it after a tactical advance in the last four days, while Britain is considering providing Ukraine with tanks for the first time since the outbreak of the war to confront the Russian forces and after many countries pledged not to Ukraine militarily. .

Kyiv officials said that Moscow had launched a strong offensive against Solidar in the Donaps industrial region, forcing Ukrainian forces to fend off waves of attacks led by Wagner mercenaries around the town of Solidar, known for its salt-mining mines, and nearby frontlines.

Solidar is located in the industrial Donbass region, about 15 km from the city of Bakhmut, where forces on both sides have suffered heavy losses in some of the fiercest trench warfare since the war began some 11 months ago.

Hana Malyar, Ukraine's deputy defense minister, said on Telegram that Ukrainian forces had repulsed an earlier attempt to capture the town, but a large number of Wagner Group units quickly returned, using new tactics and more soldiers under the cover of heavy artillery.

The governor of Donetsk province, Pavlo Korlenko, said that the Russian army completely destroyed the infrastructure in the city of Solidar and caused great damage to its neighborhoods, and that the defense lines prepared by the fighters in the city are the only ones that have remained steadfast now.

He explained that the attack on Solidar began on Friday, and that the numbers of Wagner fighters had greatly increased on that front, but he stressed that the Ukrainian army was keeping the situation under control.

In his daily speech on Monday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the continuation of fighting between the Ukrainian and Russian forces in the cities of Solidar and Bakhmut, in the east of the country.

He said that his country had gained extra time thanks to the Ukrainian soldiers and that it would liberate all of Donbass.

Donbass includes the Donetsk and Luhansk regions in eastern Ukraine.

Zelensky said, "Russia has destroyed thousands of its soldiers, and the bodies of its dead cover the land of Solidar."


Why Solidar?

British intelligence said on Tuesday that Russia's Solidar axis is likely an attempt to encircle Bakhmut from the north and disrupt Ukrainian communication lines.

Military analysts say that Moscow's military-strategic benefit from capturing Solidar and Bakhmut will be limited.

While a US official said that the founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, is looking for salt and plaster from the mines, which are believed to extend more than 160 kilometers underground and contain large caves.

Prigozhin, who is also active in conflicts in Africa, has been trying to seize Bakhmut and Solidar for months, at the expense of taking many lives on both sides.

He said on Saturday that their importance lies in the network of underground mining caves.

"Not only can it accommodate a large group of people at a depth of 80 to 100 metres, but tanks and infantry fighting vehicles can also move in it," he said.

For its part, the Russian Defense Ministry did not mention Solidar or Bakhmut in a regular press briefing on Monday, while Russian forces said they were making progress on the Bakhmut axis in Donetsk Province.

other battles

Further north, in the Kharkiv region, a Russian missile attack on a market in the village of Shevchenkov killed two women and wounded four others, including a 10-year-old girl, district prosecutors told Reuters.

Ukrainian authorities said Russian attacks targeted Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city, and infrastructure in Donetsk, Kherson and Mykolaiv regions, where the region's governor said 15 were wounded in shelling of a coastal town.

Al-Jazeera's correspondent in Donetsk province said that the cities of Kramatorsk, Sloviansk, Drushkivka and Kostantinivka were bombed at night, targeting a number of neighborhoods in those cities.

As for Bakhmut, the Ukrainian army said that the Russian forces targeted 25 residential communities in the city and that it was able to repel attempts to advance from the southern and eastern sides at the industrial city.

The local authorities had announced the deaths of civilians as a result of the Russian bombing yesterday.


British military support for the first time

On the other hand, Reuters quoted sources as saying that Britain is considering providing Ukraine with tanks for the first time since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine to confront Russian forces.

The agency quoted reports that discussions have been underway for weeks regarding the delivery of ten British "Challenger Two" tanks to Ukraine.

For its part, the British Ministry of Defense announced that it has provided Ukraine with more than two hundred armored vehicles so far.

American and European aid

Meanwhile, German Chancellor Olaf Schultz said on Monday that he was still convinced of the need to coordinate the delivery of weapons to Ukraine with the allies, with mounting pressure on Berlin to send Leopard 2 tanks to Kyiv.

Germany announced last week that it would provide Ukraine with Marder fighting vehicles to help fend off Russian forces.

The announcement came on the day the United States pledged to supply Kyiv with Bradley fighting vehicles, and a day after a similar declaration by France.

In Italy, the newspaper "La Repubblica" said on Monday that Rome will not take any decision on providing new military aid to Ukraine before February, and last year Italy granted aid to Kiev, which included military equipment.

Poland also said it wanted to join other countries to form a broad coalition to discuss the export of modern battle tanks to Ukraine.

For its part, the Kremlin warned that Western plans to supply Ukraine with heavier weapons will only lead to extending the course of the war and said that Western supplies to Ukraine will not make a fundamental change, denying at the same time Moscow's intention to make a new mobilization.

In the United States, US National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on the sidelines of US President Joe Biden's visit to Mexico that US financial aid to Ukraine is "very solid" for 2023, despite the change in the majority in Congress.

He said that the new budget allocated 45 billion dollars for aid to Ukraine, although the government requested only 37 billion dollars.

This is the amount that has already been approved.