Russian soldiers capture destroyed Ukrainian town of Soledar where Britons went missing

Russian forces are on the brink of capturing the Donetsk town of Soledar, where two British volunteers went missing while evacuating stranded civilians from the frontline. Personnel from the Wagner Group of mercenaries are understood to be in control of most of the small, eastern salt-mining town in Ukraine’s industrial Donbas region, according to British military intelligence. Pro-Russian military bloggers reported that the Wagner mercenaries had broken the frontline in Soledar and were fighting with Ukrainian troops in the town. As fierce fighting raged in and around Soledar, Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine’s president warned the ground was littered with Russian corpses and the city almost completely destroyed. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of Wagner, and a close ally of Vladimir Putin, on Tuesday said his forces were engaged in heavy fighting on the western outskirts of Soledar. Read your updates here: