The United States pointed to the key role of Seversk for the overall structure of the front line.

Seversk plays a key role not only as a transport route to Kramatorsk, but also in terms of the overall structure of the front line. Retired U.S. Army Colonel Earl Rasmussen said this in an interview with Izvestia on December 11.

"Seversk is a very important city for several reasons. Firstly, it opens the road to Kramatorsk, but also, if you look at the structure and the front line as it originally ran, it is a strategically significant settlement for many factors: a transport route, <...> from the point of view of defense, offensive, as well as from the point of view of strategic logistics," Rasmussen said..

In addition, according to the military expert, the actions of European countries seeking to weaken Russia lead to the opposite result.

"The sooner Ukraine comes to a peace agreement, the fewer losses and territorial losses there will be. Prolonging the conflict will only strengthen Russia's military position," he stressed.

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Earlier in the day, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Putin had held a meeting to discuss the current situation in the special military operation zone. He clarified that during the meeting, the president received a detailed report on the liberation of Seversk by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation.

On December 11, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov congratulated the Russian military on the liberation of the settlement of Seversk in the Donetsk People's Republic (DPR) and noted their confident progress in the Seversk direction. He stressed that military personnel perform combat missions in the most difficult areas, showing bravery and bringing victory closer.

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