MOSCOW, January 13. /TASS/. Conceding the loss of Soledar will mean a failure for the Kiev regime and NATO that has beefed up Ukraine with weapons as the control of the town is a landmark event of geopolitical significance, First Deputy Chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Eurasian Integration and Relations with Compatriots Viktor Vodolatsky told TASS on Friday.

"Today for Ukraine to admit that it [Soledar] is no longer within Ukraine and that it has returned home to make part of the Donetsk People’s Republic is a failure of not only [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, [Ukrainian Army Commander-in-Chief Valery] Zaluzhny but also of the NATO military command that is present there constantly," said Vodolatsky who is also coordinator for inter-parliamentary relations with the people’s council of the Lugansk People’s Republic (LPR).

In the lawmaker’s opinion, the fact that tens and hundreds of billions of US dollars have been spent on continuing the killing of Ukrainians will naturally "negatively impact the policy of Western countries that are today hesitant about whether to send tanks and armament to Ukraine or wait for some solution."

"This is why, Soledar is of such key military-political and geopolitical significance," he pointed out.

As the lawmaker said, Ukrainian Neo-Nazis and mercenaries from NATO countries turned the town into a powerful stronghold and actually a citadel.

Russia’s Defense Ministry reported on Friday that Russian troops had fully liberated Soledar, a scene of intense fighting in the past few days.