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1. DK (dk_dharmaraj@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 23:39:16 JST DK
   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.
   • doublecart :unverified::virgin: (doublecart@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 23:42:15 JST doublecart :unverified::virgin:

     in reply to
     @DK_Dharmaraj Did this happen right before the Russian truce?
   • DK (dk_dharmaraj@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 23:42:15 JST DK

     in reply to

     • doublecart :unverified::virgin:
     @doublecart around the same time, it's hard to say really. Jewkraine said they wouldn't agree to a truce and shelled civilian residential areas of Donetsk the literal minute the truce was supposed to begin, so it's unclear that "the truce" ever happened in any even partially meaningful sense
     Kenny Blankenship likes this.
   • Kenny Blankenship (dw2@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 23:47:27 JST Kenny Blankenship

     in reply to
     @DK_Dharmaraj Always impressed with how much better anons are at foreign affairs reporting than the people actually paid to do it.
     
     Apparently the hohols threw about 60K men into Bakhmut, compared to 25K in Lysychansk and 15K in Mariupol. Crazy when you consider that the current size of their active forces is 200K iirc.
   • Kenny Blankenship (dw2@poa.st)'s status on Friday, 06-Jan-2023 23:54:10 JST Kenny Blankenship

     in reply to

     • doublecart :unverified::virgin:
     @DK_Dharmaraj @doublecart Funny quote from the head of Wagner regarding the truce