Russia appoints new leader of Ukraine campaign as Wagner says Soledar fully captured

KYIV/NEAR BAKHMUT (MNP) – Moscow named a new commander for its invasion of Ukraine while Russian private military firm Wagner Group said its capture of the salt mining town Soledar in eastern Ukraine was complete.

Russian Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Wednesday appointed Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov as overall commander for what Moscow calls its “special military operation” in Ukraine, now in its 11th month.

The change effectively demoted General Sergei Surovikin, who was appointed only in October to lead the invasion and oversaw heavy attacks on Ukraine s energy infrastructure.

Meanwhile, Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of Wagner and a close ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin, said his forces had captured all of Soledar and killed about 500 Ukrainian soldiers after heavy fighting.

“I want to confirm the complete liberation and cleansing of the territory of Soledar,” Prigozhin said in a statement.

“The whole city is littered with the corpses of Ukrainian soldiers,” said Prigozhin.

U.S. Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin told reporters on Wednesday that he could not corroborate reports that Soledar was in Russian hands.

Reuters was unable to independently verify the situation in Soledar.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mocked previous Wagner claims to have seized part of Soledar but made no immediate comment on the latest assertions.

“The terrorist state and its propagandists are trying to pretend that part of our town of Soledar … is some sort of a Russian possession,” Zelenskiy said in a video address. “But fighting continues.”