Day 341: January 30Today a lot of important changes happened in the east. Here, the Russians have been struggling to develop their offensive operation around Soledar because the Ukrainians created several lines of formidable defense lines. However, recently the Russians made a very important breakthrough that puts the Ukrainians in Bakhmut in significant danger. In order to avoid it, the Ukrainians should start preparing for a retreat already today. As you remember, after establishing full control over Soledar about two weeks ago, the front line did not collapse, giving the Ukrainians a lot of time to adjust and regroup. The reason why the Russians could not rapidly expand westward and take Bakhmut and Siversk into pockets is simple. The Ukrainians prepared two defense lines right next to Soledar.The first defense line goes along the highway. The southern part of this highway goes along the village of Blahodatne, which turned out to be very convenient because the Ukrainians had to just fortify this village. The northern part of this highway goes along the hill, which is also very convenient, as the Ukrainians have prepared an extensive system of trenches on the high ground. What is more, there is a small river that separates Russian and Ukrainian positions and creates an additional natural barrier. This means that in order to move westwards, the Russians needed to cross the river and the highway and attack fortified positions on the highlands – this is not an easy task, which is why Russian progress here was extremely slow. So far, the Ukrainian group in Siversk is still relatively safe.Nonetheless, the Russians did manage to collapse the southern part of the first defense line and endanger the Ukrainians in Bakhmut even more. Wagner troops recently released a photo that showed that they established control over Blahodatne. Unlike the trenches to the north, Blahodatne is located in the lowlands, which made the job of the attackers easier. Now, taking control over Blahodatne does not mean that the Russians have already cut off Ukrainian supplies, but it does make defending the northern part of Bakhmut significantly harder. As you remember, the Russians have been storming Krasna Hora and Paraskoviivka for about two weeks. The Russians could only use two axes of advance: from the east and from the south. Ukrainian military officers reported that the situation had been difficult but stable, and they were right because the Russians still did not enter these settlements. However, now the Russians can also attack them from the north. If the Russians manage to enter even the first northern street, the Ukrainians would need to retreat from Krasna Hora. As you can see, otherwise, the Russians would be shooting them in the back. So, the Ukrainians have fewer and fewer defensive positions to the north of Bakhmut, which means that the Ukrainians in Bakhmut have to start leaving this town. In my estimation, the Ukrainians have around 2 weeks to safely withdraw, and after that, it will become increasingly harder to retreat in an organized way. Because an unorganized retreat is very dangerous and may cause a very rapid collapse of the front line.Ukrainian command understands this, and they have already prepared many fallback positions inside the city. The preparation started around two months ago when the Russians were throwing everything at Bakhmut they had. These fallback positions will come in handy because they will allow to gradually retreat with as low losses as possible, while the losses of the attackers may even spike if they continue to push because they will be attacking relatively fresh fortifications.