The U.K. Foreign Office reported on Jan. 24 that two British citizens, Andrew Bagshaw and Christopher Parry, who had been reported missing in Ukraine earlier this month, were killed while evacuating people from Soledar in the eastern Donetsk Oblast.
According to the report, the men had been working as volunteers, helping civilians escape from the front line of Russia's war.
Soledar has been the site of some of the fiercest fighting along the entire front line in Ukraine in the past months.
As a result of an offensive operation in January, Russian forces managed to break through Ukrainian defenses and take control of Soledar, a city just 10 kilometers northeast of Bakhmut, according to the Kyiv Independent’s sources in the military. Ukraine hasn’t officially confirmed the loss of Soledar.
Russia likely hopes to use Soledar to encircle the nearby Bakhmut. But, according to the Institute for the Study of War think-tank, gaining control of Soledar will not necessarily lead to Ukraine’s swift collapse in Bakhmut.
Russia looks to capture the area as part of its larger goal of taking control of the entirety of Donetsk Oblast, which it has partly occupied since 2014.
