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Major Russian advance into the city center of Soledar overnight. Ukrainian separatist units are fleeing en masse. There is speculation (no reports yet) that UA will attempt to manage the retreat by setting up behind another defensive line within the city. Personally I find this unlikely, as existing Russian territorial control makes resupply of units inside Soledar effectively impossible, meaning that any rear guard units can expect to be captured or killed (that said, UA has done this to their rear guards before). Either way, expect to see the city cleared within the next few days.

As bad as this situation is for the Ukraine on its own terms, it gets even worse if you look at a topographic map. Russia now occupies the dominant heights across the entirety of the northern Bakhmut region, meaning that the Ukrainian separatists now have only a single uninterdicted supply line into Bakhmut, coming from the south (Toretsk). Toretsk is also under assault, and could well be the next domino to fall. That would/will mean the total operational encirclement of Bakhmut. On this note, it has appeared for a while now that the Russian plan is to surround and besiege Bakhmut, rather than risk a head-on assault.

Finally, this development alongside the Ukrainian failure to advance in Lugansk puts the UA garrison in Seversk (just north of Soledar) in extreme peril. There was much hooting and hollering after the fall of Izyum and Liman, but the Ukraine was unable to advance past the more defensible Russian lines set up in the wake of that withdrawal (very much like the situation in Kherson... but I digress). That failure to advance has now placed the Seversk garrison in a semicircle; with the liberation of Soledar, Seversk will be close to 3/4 surrounded, with only backcountry dirt roads for resupply.

In sum, all signs point to an imminent Russian offensive, though the timing is known only by Putin himself.

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