MOSCOW/KYIV, Dec 11 (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin thanked the Russian army on Thursday after commanders told him that their forces had taken full control of the town of Siversk in eastern Ukraine, but Ukraine’s military said it remained in control there.
Reuters could not verify the battlefield claim around Siversk, a longstanding target in Russia’s slow drive to capture all of Donetsk region.
Commanders told Putin that the capture of Siversk, a town with a pre-war population of over 10,000 people, was a stepping stone towards taking Sloviansk, one of the two biggest cities in Donetsk still under Ukrainian control.
They told Putin that Ukraine had tried to defend Siversk, which Russians call Seversk, with various trenches and fortifications, and that the Russian army had defeated it by choking off its logistics routes, outflanking its troops and carrying out targeted assaults.
“We understand that by creating this fortified area in the Seversk region and in the city itself, the enemy hoped that we would get bogged down in the assault on this city, thereby holding back our advance,” Putin told commanders.
“The enemy failed. But you succeeded in everything you planned and everything you set out to do. Congratulations.”
The Ukrainian military’s Operation Task Force East unit, writing on Facebook, said: “In the Sloviansk direction, the city of Siversk remains under the control of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
“The enemy is trying to infiltrate Siversk in small groups, taking advantage of unfavourable weather conditions, but most of these units are being destroyed on the approaches.”
The Task Force East report also said Ukrainian forces were holding northern districts of Pokrovsk, a key former logistics hub to the southwest which Russian commanders said came under Moscow’s control last month.
It said Ukrainian servicemen, operating in the city centre, were blocking Russian attempts to advance. The Ukrainian military said on Wednesday that its forces were fending off an unusually large Russian mechanised attack inside Pokrovsk.
(Reporting by ReutersWriting by Andrew OsbornEditing by Mark Trevelyan, Ron Popeski)
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