MOSCOW, Jan 15 (AFP) - Russian President Vladimir Putin said that the military operation in Ukraine had gained positive momentum and that he hoped his soldiers would deliver more wins after Russia claimed control of the eastern Ukrainian salt-mining town of Soledar.

Russia’s Feb. 24 invasion of Ukraine has triggered one of the deadliest European conflicts since World War Two and the biggest confrontation between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.

Russia said on Friday that its forces had taken control of Soledar, a rare success for Moscow after months of battlefield reverses.

"The dynamic is positive," Putin told Rossiya 1 state television when asked about the taking of Soledar. "Everything is developing within the framework of the plan of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff."

"And I hope that our fighters will please us even more with the results of their combat," Putin said.

Putin now casts the war in Ukraine as an existential battle with an aggressive and arrogant West, and has said that Russia will use all available means to protect itself and its people against any aggressor.

The United States and its allies have condemned Russia's invasion of Ukraine as an imperial land grab, while Ukraine has vowed to fight until the last Russian soldier is ejected from its territory.

A regional governor in Ukraine on Saturday said that Ukrainian forces were still fighting to retain control of Soledar. The Washington-based Institute for the Study of War said it was highly unlikely that Ukrainian forces still held positions within Soledar itself.

Reuters could not immediately verify the situation in Soledar.

Neither side publish up to date figures on the death toll from the war.