MOSCOW, 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, a long-time target for Moscow.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine and Reuters could not ‌verify the battlefield claim.

Commanders told ‌Putin that the capture of Siversk, a town with a pre-war population of over 10,000 people in the Donetsk region, 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, outflankin

See Full Page