Day 318: January 07A lot of updates are once again coming from Soledar. Soledar has become one of the hottest parts of the front line, where a lot of changes happen every hour. After Wagner forces posted yesterday the video where they fight near the salt mines, a lot of people assumed that they are already here. However, this is not true. First of all, there are three large areas devoted to extracting salt: one is located near the residential area, and two are located west of it. Secondly, each area has several salt mines. Thirdly, when it comes to the one located near the residential area, it also has a tourist area and sanatorium. Today’s reports clarified the situation a lot and indicated that yesterday the Russians conducted an attack along the Zhovtneva and Tinysta streets and only assaulted the tourist area near the first salt mine. The fights there are indeed taking place, but this should not be surprising because, as mentioned previously, this is where the Ukrainians established their defense line.Other fights are taking place on the eastern outskirts. Here the Ukrainians are using the same tactic – they stepped back from the first street to the second one to create a buffer zone and avoid direct fire from Yakovlivka. If we look at the topographic, we can see that the Russians control the heights – the Russians in Yakovlivka are at an altitude of 180 meters, while the Ukrainians in the eastern outskirts are at an altitude of 120 meters, so around 60 meters below the Russians. Yakovlivka itself is less than 4 km away, so what this means is that the Russians have very good fire control over the outer streets. The Russians reportedly use various anti-tank systems to target Ukrainian tanks that are in direct vision. They are also firing from their own tanks at Ukrainian positions on the outskirts. That is why the Ukrainians had to give away the outer street to create a buffer, and that is why the Wagners were able to create a semblance of huge progress, where it seems like the Ukrainian defense line has been breached in multiple places. In reality, the situation did not change much, and the fights are still taking place inside the buffer zones. In fact, the Head of the Wagner forces, Progizhin himself said that the discussion of the total capture of Soledar is premature. As Prigozhin is trying to promote his private army, he needs to show its effectiveness. Premature talks of the capture of the city can undermine its reputation if the city continues to stand, which is why Prigozhin was quick to lower people’s expectations back to the baseline. If we zoom out and look at the bigger picture, we can notice that the Russians may not even be trying to take Soledar by brute force. Over the last two days, it was reported that the Russians had assaulted Pidhorodne, Krasna Hora, Krasnopolivka, and Rozdolivka. Attacking these settlements is extremely difficult because the Russians get into the crossfire from Soledar. However, now, as the Russians are attacking the salt mine area, they are fixing Ukrainian troops and opening a window of opportunity to storm the settlements to the south. The same happens to the north – they assault the outskirts of Soledar to keep the Ukrainian troops busy while they are attacking other settlements on the line. The Russians understand that if they cut off Ukrainians from the flanks, the Ukrainians in Soledar would have to retreat without a fight or risk being taken into a pocket. So, the Russians are fixing Ukrainian troops in Soledar while they are setting the conditions to conduct a double flank attack. The main focus of the Ukrainians likely needs to be reinforcing the flanks and making sure that the Russians cannot breach them because Ukrainian fortifications inside Soledar are quite formidable, and it is unlikely that the Russians can take the city in front by brute force.