Aerial view without date on the Ukrainian Snake Island. Anonymous / Associated Press
Russian forces abandoned the strategic Black Sea outpost on Snake Island on Thursday, in a major victory for Ukraine that could loosen the grip of Russia’s blockade of Ukrainian ports.
Russia’s defense ministry has said it has decided to withdraw from the revelation as a “gesture of goodwill” to show that Moscow is not hampering UN efforts to open a humanitarian corridor to allow grain supplies from Ukraine.
Ukraine said it had driven out Russian forces after massive artillery and an overnight attack.
“KABUM!” Andriy Ermak, head of the office of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, tweeted. “There are no more Russian troops on Snake Island. Our armed forces have done a great job. “
Ukraine’s Southern Military Command posted on Facebook an image of what appears to be the island seen from the air, with at least five huge columns of black smoke rising above it from what it describes as a missile and artillery attack.
“The enemy quickly evacuated the remains of the garrison in two speedboats and probably left the island. Snake Island is currently engulfed in fire, explosions erupt.
Reuters could not immediately verify the photo or the battlefield accounts on either side.
The bare rock protrusion controls the sea routes to Odessa, Ukraine’s main Black Sea port, and Russia’s holding of it has helped prevent food loads from one of the world’s leading grain suppliers.
Snake Island has attracted worldwide attention since Russia captured it on the first day of the war, when a Ukrainian guard ordered by the Russian flagship cruiser Moscow to surrender returned on the radio “Russian warship: go fuck yourself.”
“The most important aspect is that this could open the door to Ukrainian grain exports from Odessa, which is crucial for the Ukrainian economy and global food supply,” tweeted Rob Lee, a senior fellow at the US-based Institute for Foreign Affairs. politics.
The lifting of the blockade is a major strategic goal of the West: US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken has accused Russia of deliberately causing world hunger, such as “extortion.” Moscow denies responsibility for the food shortage and blames Western sanctions, which it says restrict its own exports.
Oleg Zhdanov, a Kyiv-based military analyst, told Reuters that expelling the Russians from Snake Island alone would not be enough to unblock Ukrainian ports.
But that would reduce Russia’s control over the sea: “This is a great victory in the sense that we are eliminating the dominance of the Black Sea Fleet,” he said.
Last month, the British Ministry of Defense said that if Russia managed to consolidate its grip on Snake Island with cruise missiles for air defense and coastal defense, it could dominate the northwestern Black Sea.
Russia has been defending the island since February, although Ukraine has increasingly claimed serious damage by sinking supply ships and destroying Russian fortifications.
The new weapons sent from the West have made the Russian garrison even more vulnerable, especially the arrival of HIMARS, a powerful missile system supplied by the United States that Ukraine began using last week.
Lee said Russia’s abandonment of the island was “probably a tangible result of NATO arms supplies to Ukraine.”
The chief of Ukraine’s armed forces said Ukrainian howitzers firing on the island had played a role in driving the Russians away from him, but also thanked foreign countries for their support.
Ukraine’s victory on Snake Island comes weeks after the momentum in the conflict appears to have shifted in favor of Russia, which has focused its firepower on capturing cities in the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine.
It captured the city of Severodonetsk last week after weeks of heavy fighting and is now trying to encircle the city of Lisichansk on the opposite side of the Seversky Donets River.
Ukrainian authorities say they are trying to evacuate the remaining residents of Lisichansk, where they say about 15,000 people remain.
“The fight continues all the time. The Russians are constantly on the offensive. There is no weight loss, “regional governor Sergei Gaidai told Ukrainian television.
An official from the province’s pro-Russian separatist administration told RIA that the Lisichansk oil refinery was now fully controlled by Russian and pro-Russian forces, and that all roads to Lisichansk were also under their control.
Ukraine says the main road is largely impassable due to fighting, but the city is not yet seceded.
Although it has retreated and suffered heavy losses in Donbass in recent weeks, Ukraine hopes to do enough damage to exhaust Russia’s advancing army.
Ukrainian forces are launching a slow but steady counterattack to the south, where Russian-installed proxies have announced preparations for a vote to join Russia.
Ukraine’s 60th Infantry Brigade announced on Facebook on Thursday that it had captured the village of Potemkin in the southern region of Kherson. This cannot be verified independently.
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