The Russians have elevated the command over the Ukraine operation to the level of Gerasimov, who is the chief military commander of the Russian Federation (above him are only the defense minister Shoigu and President Putin), which means that, for all intents and purposes, this is elevated to full strategic level and the entire might of the Russian army is behind it now.

The warships and submarines departed from Novorossiysk, which probably indicates something significant.

There is a cold spell in Ukraine and the ground is frozen everywhere except on the Black Sea shore.

The Ukrainian equivalent of the Maginot line in Soledar and Bakhmut is broken. The last 500 Ukrainians who failed to evacuate from Soledar were killed by Wagner. I don’t know what’s the exact situation in Bakhmut, but the last I’ve heard sounded like complete disarray and its fall is imminent.

If I were commanding the Russian forces, I would use the momentum to completely demoralize and crush the Ukrainians, because this kind of a thing is contagious and you need to press the advantage once you achieve such a breakthrough. I expect they will use a synergy of energy denial, winter, demoralization and overwhelming force. I don’t know about the timing, but I would say that the breakthrough in the Bakhmut area looks like something that has been intentionally delayed in order to coordinate it with “something”, and too many preparations have been going on for that “something” to be anything less than a decisive blow.