The Ukraine capital Kyiv on Saturday morning woke up to heavy explosions as Russian missiles pounded the city.
According to Ukraine authorities the Russian missiles had struck key infrastructure in the captial. The city administration said an infrastructure facility had been hit.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that its forces had won a significant victory on Friday with the capture of the eastern Ukrainian town of Soledar the salt-mining town.
The Russian defence ministry said Friday that Soledar’s capture “makes it possible to cut off supply routes of Ukrainian troops” there and surround them.
Soledar’s fall will strengthen Russian positions around Bakhmut. It will give Russians strategic foothold to launch a wider offensive against the Ukrainian-held cities of Sloviansk and Kramatorsk to the north.
However,Kyiv dismissed Russia’s announcement and said “severe fighting” was ongoing in Soledar, an industrial town with a pre-war population of about 10,000 now reduced to rubble.
In Siversk, a town north of Soledar that could be next in line for the Russian advance, artillery echoed around the battered buildings dotted with a few remaining residents and Ukrainian military personnel braving light snow and freezing wind.
