During the day, Soledar (Bakhmut district of Donetsk region) and the city's environs were hit 86 times with various artillery systems, the city was virtually destroyed, said Serhiy Cherevaty, spokesman for the Eastern Group of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU).

"During this day alone, Soledar and its environs were hit 86 times with various artillery systems. The President again emphasized this yesterday that the city was actually destroyed, and their [occupiers] logic of the war itself is not clear, because seizing the ruins, as it was earlier in Lysychansk and Severodonetsk, laying down an incalculable number of troops, is in the art of war, and especially modern, of the 21st century, very strange," he said on the Channel 24 on Tuesday.

Cherevaty noted that the main method of storming the city among the Russians now is the use of destruction systems, MLRS, cannon artillery and, at their expense, the advancement of small groups of infantry.

On the Bakhmut-Soledar sector, as emphasized in the Armed Forces of Ukraine, the enemy has concentrated its best specialists, in particular the special forces of the "Wagner" PMC, with the support of the regular Russian army.

"It is the fighters of Soledar who hold the city, now they are gaining time and opportunities for the entire defense. Therefore, the enemy suffers colossal losses there, but despite this, they are still trying to move forward, because for them even a small tactical advance is presented as a great achievement," he said.