The fate of a devastated salt-mining town in eastern Ukraine hung in the balance Wednesday as Ukraine said its forces were holding out against a furious Russian onslaught in one of the fiercest recent ground battles of the nearly 11-month war.

Ukrainian and Russian forces fought street by street to hold or gain ground in Soledar, according to military analysts. The town’s fall, while unlikely to provide a turning point in the war, would be a prize for a Kremlin starved of good news from the battlefield in recent months.

It would also offer Russian troops a strategic springboard for their efforts to conquer other areas of Donetsk province that remain under Ukrainian control. Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province, which together make up the Donbas region bordering Russia, were Moscow’s main stated targets in invading Ukraine, but the fighting has stood mostly at a stalemate.

The spokesman for Ukraine’s Eastern Group of Forces, Serhiy Cherevaty, said Wednesday that Russian claims of Soledar’s capture were “untrue,” Ukrainian news outlet Suspilne reported.

Cherevaty offered no further details, saying only that the General Staff of Ukraine’s armed forces would provide more information later.

The General Staff in its Wednesday morning update only listed Soledar among cities and towns that continue to be shelled by Russian forces.

Late Tuesday, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the owner of the Wagner Group, a private Russian military contractor, claimed in audio reports posted on his Russian social media platform that his soldiers had seized control of Soledar, though he also said that fighting continued in a “cauldron” in the city’s center.

The Associated Press was unable to verify that claim.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Wednesday that Russian forces had “positive dynamics in advancing” in Soledar, but he stopped short of declaring its capture when asked about the claims that it has come under Russian control.

“Let’s not rush and wait for official statements,” he said.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said this week that “everything is completely destroyed” in the area due to relentless shelling and weeks of close, house-to-house combat.

“The whole land near Soledar is covered with the corpses of the occupiers and scars from the strikes,” Zelenskyy said. “This is what madness looks like.”

Soledar, known for salt mining and processing, has little intrinsic value. But it lies at a strategic point 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces are aiming to surround.

Taking Bakhmut would disrupt Ukraine’s supply lines and open a route for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s forces to press toward Kramatorsk and Sloviansk, key Ukrainian strongholds in Donetsk province.

Soledar’s fall would make “holding Bakhmut much more precarious for Ukraine,” Michael Kofman, the director of Russia Studies at the CAN nonprofit research organization in Arlington, Virginia, noted Wednesday.

The costly war of attrition, with expected heavy casualties, may make Russia’s victory as costly as a defeat, however.

“I don’t think the outcome at Bakhmut is that significant compared to what it costs Russia to achieve it,” Kofman said in a tweet.

The Wagner Group, which now reportedly includes a large contingent of convicts recruited in Russian prisons, has spearheaded the attack on Soledar and Bakhmut.

Western intelligence has estimated that the Wagner Group constitutes up to a quarter of all Russian combatants in Ukraine.

A success in Soledar and Bakhmut would help Prigozhin, who has openly criticized Russia’s military leadership, to increase his clout at the Kremlin.

Russia illegally annexed Donetsk, Luhansk and two other Ukrainian provinces in September, but its troops have struggled to advance. After Ukrainian forces recaptured the southern city of Kherson in November, the battle heated up around Bakhmut.

The Institute for the Study of War said Russian forces were up against “concerted Ukrainian resistance” around Bakhmut.

“The reality of block-by-block control of terrain in Soledar is obfuscated by the dynamic nature of urban combat … and Russian forces have largely struggled to make significant tactical gains in the Soledar area for months,” the Washington-based think tank said.

An exceptional feature of the fighting near Bakhmut is that some of it has taken place around entrances to disused salt mine tunnels which run for some 200 kilometers (120 miles), according to Western intelligence reports.

Several front-line cities in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces have witnessed intense fighting in recent months. Putin identified the Donbas region as a focus from the war’s outset, and where Moscow-backed separatists have fought there since 2014.

Russia captured almost all of Luhansk during the summer. Donetsk escaped the same fate, and the Russian military subsequently poured manpower and resources around Bakhmut.

On a different front, Zelenskyy on Wednesday visited the western city of Lviv and held a high-level meeting on the security situation near Ukraine’s border with Kremlin ally Belarus, the president’s office said in a statement.

Russia has stationed more than 10,000 of its soldiers in Belarus and conducts regular military drills in the country, which has a roughly 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) border with Ukraine. The Kremlin used Belarus as a staging ground to send troops and missiles into Ukraine when it invaded on Feb. 24.

Concerns have risen in recent months about the Kremlin potentially pressuring Belarus into opening up a new front in Ukraine’s west, possibly to target supply routes for Western weapons and other overseas aid that have helped Kyiv’s forces sustain a defense and to launch a counteroffensive.

Zelenskyy said there were no immediate worries about Minsk joining the war but added: “We must be ready,” according to the statement.

Meanwhile, Putin claimed Wednesday that Russia had successfully resisted Western pressure, especially sanctions, over its invasion of Ukraine and vowed that the country has enough resources to beef up its military while continuing social programs and meeting other development targets.

“Nothing of what our enemies forecast has happened,” Putin said in a video call with top members of his Cabinet.

“We will strengthen our defense capability and will undoubtedly solve all issues related to supplies to military units involved in the special military operation,” he said, using the Kremlin’s euphemism for the war.

He said Russia has received 200 billion rubles (about $3 billion) in additional revenue from higher oil and gas prices caused by the war.

(AP)