Artemovsk (Bakhmut), information from Ukrainian sources :

The musicians have moved on to a decisive assault on the center of Artemivsk, pressuring the Armed Forces of Ukraine from three sides—south, east, and north.

Locals reported this afternoon that the orchestra had been conducting artillery preparation ( attacking the positions of the AFU using artillery to disrupt communication and the AFU defense) for more than a day. 
It is extremely likely that today the musicians have turned to assaults with the use of large numbers of soldiers.

In the north, now there is a battle in the area of the cafe "Copper Barrel." From which we conclude that the entire industrial zone has passed under our control and the assault units of Wagner PMC went further.

@polk105

Hat tip : Миша , Slavyangrad

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There has been some discussion on the “heights” to the Northwest of Artemovsk (Bakhmut) by many commentators and analysts. This is often described as a strategically significant terrain which shall be taken by Russian forces should Artemovsk fall and presumably then allow Russian forces to gain an artillery standoff range and assault Kramatorsk and Slavyansk with impunity.
However, looking at the territory denoted on map 1, this does not seem to be the case.

Marked on map 1 are the purported Artemovsk heights. It’s an area of about 600 square kilometers, including some territory already being held by Russian forces near Soledar. The green line very crudely represents the current line of contact in the Artemovsk operation. Note that the distance between Slavyansk and Seversk is about 33km. While typical artillery range lies inside of a 12-19 kilometer effective firing range, there are many long-range artillery systems that are capable of achieving firing ranges of 40km or even more (accuracy not accounted for). Even the BM-21 “Hail” is capable of achieving effective firing ranges greater than 33km with certain munitions.
As such, Seversk is already within long-range artillery envelope, and should Seversk fall, so would be Slavyansk. The territory between Bakhmut/Seversk and Slavyansk does not need to be occupied in order to conduct artillery fire, if only long-range artillery, unless a mountain range is in the way.

Zooming in on grid DQ1602, shown on map 2, we can take some measurements. The typical "high ground" in the area lay between 200 and 210 meters elevation above sea level. The typical “low ground" sits between 110-130 meters elevation.
Artemovsk, Seversk, Kramatorsk, and Slavyansk themselves are all situated at ~70 meters elevation. Charting the inclines shows some slopes of ~5-7%, or ~3-4° gradient, but these are exceptions within this terrain.
For reference, the typical incline of a handicapped access ramp for wheelchairs on sidewalks has an 8.33% slope.

Zooming in on the neighboring grids, there is not any inclined plane steeper than 7.72% slope.

Jumping over to map 3, charted here are three separate hiking routes beginning at the outskirts of these heights and meeting together in the near center of them, at a settlement named Rai Aleksandrovka, sitting at an elevation of 183m. It should be noted that all three of these routes follow paved roadways (therefore, the lowest elevation routes through this terrain).

The steepest climb of these routes seems to be a 90-meter ascent over a distance of ~2km. This would be a 4.5% slope.

Finally, a topographical sat-map of the area -map 4. As seen, there are still the usual “rectangular-grids” one would expect to see on farms or orchards, bordered by treelines, as is typical of the combat zone in the Ukraine, and not the sort of thing one expects to see in steep hills or mountains.

This is a relatively elevated area compared to much of the rest of the operational zone to the immediate south of this region, but ultimately zero times 1,000 is still zero, and a pancake times 1,000 is still pancake. Ukraine, or at least Central and Eastern Ukraine, is extremely flat, and the territory Northwest of Bakhmut before the Kramatorsk-Slavyansk line appears to be no exception.

A possible explanation of the origin of this idea is that open source commentators laid eyes on a particular type of topographic map that visually displays elevation by colour shading (pic 5), made an erroneous conclusion, and then passed this word on to others. Eventually, via the "telephone game" phenomenon, this misconception passed into common belief.

These maps do not accurately nor intuitively display elevation differentials on a map. They simply colour the highest points red or orange and the lowest points green or blue, which can mislead someone trying to understand the elevation over distance at first glance. Looking at such a map, the land under my house would be shaded "red" as compared to my sidewalk, even though the total change in elevation from my house to my sidewalk is neglible.

Overall, the conclusion from looking at the map is that whether or not the ground to the Northwest of Bakhmut holds strategic significance, it certainly has nothing to do with the elevation of that terrain.

From the included Googlemaps street-view images, one standing here and looking towards the horizon would not notice a massive increase in elevation, just some hills here and there.


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