Yevgeny Prigozhin

"We successfully occupied a hill, an elevation that was strategically important for that area. From that place, you can see the surroundings and all the access roads north of Bakhmut. We can see that those access roads can no longer be passed as the enemy would like," a member of "Wagner" group that performs a series of tasks in that direction told Sputnik.

The United States on Jan. 20 designated Russia's Wagner group as a "transnational criminal organization," piling pressure on the private Russian army fighting in Ukraine.

As of Monday evening, the Ukrainian military may have already withdrawn from Soledar, which as a result is controlled by the Russian military and the private military company Wagner.

This is according to today's military intelligence briefing, after Russia announced on Friday that it was in control of the Donbas city.

Russia said on Jan. 13 its forces had wrested control of the war-scarred town of Soledar in east Ukraine, its first claim of victory in months of battlefield setbacks, but Ukraine said fierce fighting was still under way.

The Belarusian security company GuardService(Gardservis), the only one allowed to own firearms by order of Alexander Lukashenko, has increased its staff several times and is preparing to participate in military operations.

Here are the highlights of events related to the war in Ukraine over the past 24 hours:

Soledar in eastern Ukraine is now under Russian control

The head of Russia's mercenary group Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, said early Wednesday his fighters had taken control of Ukraine's city of Soledar after intense fighting this week, but said some "urban battles" continued.

The private military company "Wagner" alone attacked the Ukrainian city of Soledar and is "close" to capturing it. These words of the head of "Wagner" Yevgeny Prigozhin were distributed by his company "Concord" in response to a question to him from Russian media.