Soledar is located in eastern Ukraine's Donetsk province, one of four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed in September and has been trying to wrest full control over since.The town's fall would mark a rare victory for the Kremlin after a series of battlefield setbacks in its invasion of Ukraine.From the outset, Moscow identified Donetsk and neighboring Luhansk province as priorities, and it has treated the areas as Russian territory since their alleged annexation.Taking control of Soledar would allow Russian forces "to cut supply lines for the Ukrainian forces" in the Donestsk city of Bakhmut and then "block and encircle the Ukrainian units there," Konashenkov claimed.While the battle for the small town has become hugely symbolic, and it does sit in close proximity to the larger Ukrainian-held city of Bakhmut, the Institute for the Study of War, a think tank in Washington, said a Russian seizure of Soledar would not represent "an operationally significant development and is unlikely to presage an imminent Russian encirclement of Bakhmut.""