Before the full-scale invasion, Soledar was a deep rear — a city of mines, salt lakes, and silence. The war wiped it all away. All that remains are photographs, destroyed five-story buildings, and a single exhibition that has been turned into a memorial.
Today, the Ukrainian Association of Professional Photographers remembers the captured town of Soledar in the Bakhmut district of Donetsk region and publishes photos by Irina Rybakova, press officer of the 93rd Brigade “Kholodny Yar.” Her brigade defended the town for four and a half months, until it was occupied.
.jpg)
A city born of salt
The history of Soledar is the history of salt. For centuries, these lands have held salt deposits that have shaped not only the natural landscape but also the landscape of human life. Salt mining began here at the end of the 17th century, and the village of Bryantsivka sprang up near the salt mines. In the 19th century, geologists discovered nine layers of salt, and construction began on the first mine, the Bryantsivka Salt Mine. The salt layer discovered at that time was 40 meters thick.
Over the next few decades, five more mines popped up, and production grew into a real industrial empire. Salt shaped everything — from the name of the local train station (Sol) to the neighborhoods for miners.
In 1926, Bryantsivka was renamed Karlo-Libknekhtivsk, in keeping with Soviet tradition. The city did not receive its current name, Soledar, until July 1991, at the turn of the era. But salt remained its unchanging foundation.
The industrial giant Artemsil, located in Soledar, supplied 96% of the salt on the Ukrainian market and had over 50,000 wholesale customers in the former Soviet Union, Europe, and Africa. According to the company's employees, even after three centuries of mining, the deposits had decreased by only one percent. The total area of the enterprise exceeded 50 square kilometers.
In the early 1990s, a therapeutic speleological complex called Solyana Simfonia was opened in a mine at a depth of 300 meters. Here, people with bronchial asthma, chronic bronchitis, allergies, and neurological diagnoses were treated. Soledar was not only an industrial center but also a health resort.
The local warm lake remained a scientific mystery — the deeper you go, the warmer the water gets. Part of the lake is fresh, while the other part is so salty that you can't even dive in.
But everything changed in 2014. And finally, in 2022.
Salt turned to dust
The Russian war first reached Soledar in 2014. Back then, in the spring, militants from the Russian-backed “DPR” took over the town and held it for over two months. It wasn't until July 22 that Ukrainian forces regained control of the area.
In addition, since 2014, Russian and pro-Russian figures have been using the city's name in their propaganda. The “DPR” claimed that Ukrainian troops were storing weapons in the salt tunnels. Later, these same fakes were repeated by the founder of the Wagner Group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, who claimed that “tanks and armored personnel carriers” were driving in the mines. In reality, it is physically impossible to lower equipment into the tunnels. The entrances are narrow and the depth reaches hundreds of meters. Even mining equipment has to be dismantled into pieces to be transported down.
In February 2022, the war returned — on a large scale and for good. Although the fighting initially took place at a distance, Russian missiles and shells quickly reached Soledar. Residential buildings, infrastructure, and the city's main pride and joy — the state-owned enterprise Artemsil — were hit by a barrage of shelling.
Despite the danger, the enterprise continued to operate for some time. But in April 2022, Artemsil was forced to stop production — logistics were destroyed, the railway was out of service, and workshops and equipment were burning. According to official data, more than 2,500 employees left their homes, fleeing the shelling and destruction that continued day and night.
On May 17, Russian troops launched their first targeted strike on Soledar. After that, Artemsil ceased operations for good. Ukraine lost its main source of technical and food-grade salt, and the city lost its raison d'être.
In August 2022, fierce fighting for the city began. The Russians sent elite assault units, including the Wagner Group, to the area. For them, Soledar was not only a military hub but also a trophy, both symbolic and financial. The founder of Wagner, Yevgeny Prigozhin, made no secret of his interest in the salt mines: according to military analysts, he saw them as a source of future income.
In January 2023, the fighting reached its peak. The Russian army tried to use Soledar as a key to capture Bakhmut from the north — a strategically important city whose defense was held, in particular, thanks to Soledar.
On January 16, Ukrainian troops withdrew from the outskirts of the city. According to Pavlo Kyrylenko, head of the Donetsk Regional Military Administration, “practically nothing remains” of Soledar itself. But underground, deep in the mines, the enemy is still trying to gain a foothold.
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the time:
“Everything has been destroyed, life has almost ceased to exist. Thousands of their people have been lost: the entire land around Soledar is littered with the corpses of occupiers and scarred by shelling. This is what madness looks like. Thanks to the resilience of our soldiers there, in Soledar, we have gained additional time and strength for Ukraine.”
Soledar by Iryna Rybakova: between industry, the front line, and memory
Iryna Rybakova, press officer of the 93rd Brigade “Kholodny Yar” of the Ukrainian Ground Forces and photographer, first arrived in Soledar in August 2022, when her brigade was transferred from the Izyum direction to Bakhmut. The situation was already tense: fighting was ongoing in the surrounding areas, and the Knauf factory had been lost. The city was no longer a rear base — it had become part of the active front line.
"We had just stabilized the situation in the Izyum region and liberated several villages when we were transferred to Bakhmut, specifically to Soledar. It was a completely different environment — no fields, but an industrial zone with mines and factories. It was interesting, but also difficult. As a photographer, it was hard to organize shoots in such conditions," recalls Iryna.
Before the war, she had never been to Soledar. The city was considered deep behind enemy lines — even in 2014, meetings of the Trilateral Contact Group were held in salt mines. Irina's brigade did not fight there during the ATO, so everything she saw in 2022 came as a surprise.
.jpg)
“When we left Soledar in December, it had not yet been occupied. We didn't make it to Kyiv — we found out that the city was surrounded and everything had gone haywire. It was sad. While we were there, the front line was stable. As soon as we left, everything fell apart.”
Iryna Rybakova remembers looking at the DeepState map: for months, the front line had hardly changed. But as soon as the Ukrainian units withdrew, a rapid offensive began. The fighting for Bakhmut intensified, and Soledar literally fell apart.
“The front line was stable there. But high-explosive bombs were constantly falling. There was a command post for one of the battalions in the kindergarten. It was hit by an Iskander missile. The building was completely destroyed. One person was killed — on the street. Everyone else survived by a miracle.”
Civilians were still living among the ruins. Even in the suburbs, on the front line, there were elderly people. Irina recalls that one old woman was only taken away when the food ran out.
"I remember the area: complete ruins, burned-out cars, burnt-out five-story buildings, one of which had been destroyed in half by a FAB. A Polish journalist and I approached a local resident, who asked us not to disturb a child in the basement. He said that a journalist might scare her. But she lived in a burned-down house, next to a house destroyed by debris, and only a journalist would scare her... People weren't very open. Some argued, some swore. But there were also those who simply heated water near the entrance — and that was life too."
Iryna photographed mortar gunners. Those positions — near the mines and industrial zone — became the heart of her photo archive. She took some of the photos for the media, and some of the mortar gunners, such as Yurko Trinadtsyaty and his unit, helped organize the shootings. They held their positions for a long time.
.jpg)
“Unfortunately, Yurka is no longer with us. These photos are particularly valuable because of him and thanks to him. I brought many journalists to him and his guys, both foreign and Ukrainian.”
Now it hurts to look at these photos — Soledar is not just destroyed, it is occupied. And all that remains are images.
“Sometimes you think: I didn't take enough photos. I could have taken more. But then you realize: at least we have these. There could have been nothing.”
.jpg)
These photographs became part of the exhibition “Soledar. Salt. War.” It was initiated by a Ukrainian photographer who photographed Soledar before the war and now lives in Germany. He collected a series of photographs of peaceful and destroyed Soledar. Iryna provided her work taken during the Russian invasion. The exhibition was shown in Ukraine and abroad. She remembers the opening in Pokrovsk, where the then head of the administration, Oleksandr Kyrylenko, gave a speech. She also remembers a woman who was supposed to speak but couldn't.
“She came out and said nothing. She had a lump in her throat. That was the real response — silence. And pain.”
Soledar, which no longer exists, remains in memories, photographs, and the testimonies of those who defended it to the last. But even when the city is destroyed, the memory of it continues to resist.
Iryna Rybakova — press officer of the 93rd Brigade “Kholodny Yar” of the Ukrainian Ground Forces. Born in Kyiv. A journalist by education, she has worked in Ukrainian print and online media since 2004 and was also a communications manager at the anti-corruption organization Transparency Int. She first went to war in February 2015 as part of the Karpatskaya Sich volunteer battalion in Pisky, Donetsk Oblast. Since then, she has decided to document the fighting in Ukraine. In 2017, she enlisted in the 93rd Brigade. She documented the combat operations in which the unit participated during the Joint Forces Operation and during the full-scale invasion. She filmed the liberation of Okhtyrka, Trostyanets, and the Kharkiv region, as well as the course of combat operations in Soledar and Bakhmut. Her work has been published by foreign news agencies Reuters and Associated Press.
Instagram of Iryna.
Contributors:
Researcher and author: Vira Labych
Photo editor: Olga Kovalova
Literary editor: Yulia Futey
Website manager: Vladislav Kukhar
