On February 24, the day Russia’s invasion of Ukraine began, a small group of Ukrainian border guards confronted a Russian warship that bent down to occupy their rocky island. “I am a Russian warship,” a voice from the sea said, according to a recording released by the Ukrainian news agency Ukrayinska Pravda. The voice called on the Ukrainian guards to surrender otherwise “you will be bombed”. The now famous answer: “Russian warship, go alone”. The Russians opened fire. Ukraine initially said its guards on Snake Island, a tiny piece of land about 25 miles off the southeast coast of Ukraine, had been killed. Later, however, it emerged that at least some had been taken prisoner. Roman Hrybov, the Ukrainian soldier who allegedly insulted the Russians, was released in a prisoner exchange in March and given a medal of bravery. On the island of snakes in Ukraine, a provocative last stand against Russian forces News of the salty verbal exchange between Russian forces in Moskva and Snake Island guards made ricochets around the world. He referred to memes on the Internet, to T-shirts and to speeches in the US Senate. Ukraine has issued a commemorative stamp depicting a Ukrainian soldier, with his weapon lowered and his middle finger raised, standing in front of an approaching warship. The outcry became a rallying cry for Ukrainians and their international allies – a symbol of the Ukrainian fighters’ willingness to face Russian aggression. Once again – Russian warships go… Dedicated to the liberation of the island of snakes of Ukraine from our heroic army. pic.twitter.com/vz1aeJkgM7 – Defense of Ukraine (@DefenceU) June 30, 2022 Four months later, the war continues to come at a heavy price. But Snake Island, at least, is back in Ukrainian hands. Russian and Ukrainian officials acknowledged on Thursday that Russian forces had left the island, called Zmiinyi in Ukrainian, after occupying the strategic Black Sea outpost for months. However, they offered significantly different narratives of the events that led to this result. Russia has described its withdrawal from Snake Island as a “gesture of goodwill” at a time when Moscow is facing global outrage over its blocking of grain exports from Ukraine, which is key to easing a global food crisis. The island, which covers just 0.06 square miles, is located on a significant strip of ships and an access point to the main port of Odessa. Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement that its forces “have completed the tasks assigned to them” on the island. “[We] “It has shown to the world community that the Russian Federation is not interfering in the UN efforts to organize a humanitarian corridor for the export of agricultural products from the territory of Ukraine,” the ministry said. Ukraine offered a different story. An explosion of Ukrainian artillery, rockets and air strikes this month forced the Russians to withdraw, wrote Valery Zaluzny, the head of the Ukrainian armed forces, in a Facebook post. He shared videos of rockets hitting the island and the surrounding waters. Ukraine pounded the island for days, and the Ukrainian Defense Ministry said earlier this week that it had removed Russian anti-aircraft systems there. Russia, meanwhile, has denied that its systems were damaged. Russian forces try unsuccessfully to thwart night fighter jet attack on the coast of the Odessa region, the southern command of the Ukrainian army said on Facebook. As the Ukrainian military operation continued, Russian troops remaining on the island “hurriedly evacuated” the guard with two speedboats, the statement added. “To the snake [Island] “There are no other Russians,” Andriy Yermak, head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, told the Telegram. “The Ukrainian Armed Forces carried out a wonderful operation and knocked them out.” He added, introducing an emoji with the flag of Ukraine: “Everything will be done [Ukraine]. » Satellite images taken Thursday morning by Maxar Technologies and provided to the Washington Post show smoke rising from the northern part of Snake Island as structures burn. Zaluzni thanked the fighters in the Odessa region “who have taken the greatest measures to liberate a strategically important area of our territory.” He praised the builders and builders of the homemade, self-propelled Bohdana, “which played an important role in the liberation of the island.” He also thanked the foreign allies for the weapons that helped the fight. The British Ministry of Defense said on June 21 that Ukrainian forces had successfully used Western-supplied Harpoon anti-ship missiles to sink a Russian tug he was directing to deliver weapons and personnel to Snake Island. The withdrawal of Russian troops on Thursday provoked enthusiastic reactions in Ukraine and around the world. «KABOOM! “There are no more Russian troops on Snake Island,” Yermak wrote on Twitter. “Congratulations Ukrainian warriors on the liberation of Snake Island!” Michael McFaul, the US ambassador to Russia under the Obama administration, wrote on Twitter. Strategically, the withdrawal of Russian forces from the island means that Moscow is losing a Black Sea base from which its forces could threaten major sea lanes along the Ukrainian coast south to Romania. Kyrylo Budanov, head of Ukraine’s secret service, said in May that anyone controlling Snake Island controlled “the surface and, to some extent, the air condition in southern Ukraine,” CNN reported. “The expulsion of Russian forces from Ukraine from Snake Island is a major achievement for Kyiv and a major defeat for Russia,” said Mason Clark, head of the Russian team at the Institute for War Studies. on Thursday. “Ukrainian forces are unlikely to recapture Snake Island themselves, but they do not need to – they had to get the Russians out of it, and they did.” However, Russia has not lifted its naval blockade – and may still threaten ships sailing in Odessa with its Black Sea fleet and land-based anti-ship weapons systems in Crimea and other parts of southern Ukraine, Clark said. It is also unclear whether Ukraine will send troops back to the island. For Ukraine, Russia’s withdrawal from Snake Island may prove more important as a symbolic victory. The Ukrainians took their first dose of revenge for Russia’s occupation of the island in April, when Ukraine sank Moscow. In addition to being the offensive ship in the original Snake Island confrontation, it was the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet and an irreplaceable naval asset in the Black Sea. The Post reported in May that the United States had provided Ukraine with information that helped Kyiv attack and sink it. Ukraine’s Defense Ministry made it clear on Thursday that it saw the Russian flight under Ukrainian bombardment as imminent. “The Operational Administration of the South confirms that the Russian occupiers have left the island of snakes. “They could not stand the weather – the ground was burning under their feet, the sea was boiling, the air was very hot,” the ministry wrote on Twitter. «Υ.Γ. Russian warships go alone! “ David L. Stern in Kyiv, Mary Ilyushina in Riga, Latvia and Adela Suliman in London contributed to this exhibition.
