Russian forces announced their withdrawal last week from this small strategic island in the Black Sea. kyiv claims that the Ukrainian flag is flying there again. What Moscow denies.
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The Ukrainian army claimed to have regained control of Serpents’ Island in the Black Sea on Thursday, July 7, after having handed over its flag there a few days earlier, following the withdrawal of Russian forces from this small symbolic territory. “We have effectively restored our control over Serpents’ Island”said a senior official of the general staff of the Ukrainian army, Oleksiï Gromov, quoted by the news agency Interfax-Ukraine (in Ukrainian).
“Last week we established arms control of the island and prevented the enemy from taking away the rest of their units, weapons and military equipment”he continued. Oleksiy Gromov adds that the Ukrainian soldiers who participated in the operation have however returned to their barracks, without specifying whether any soldiers remained on the island. Sergei Bratchouk, the spokesman for the Odessa military administration, published a photograph of the flag-raising ceremony, without disclosing a date.
The situation remains confused. The Russian Defense Ministry, meanwhile, says it carried out a strike Thursday morning on Serpents’ Island with “high precision missiles”, after the arrival of Ukrainian soldiers around 5 a.m., landed on the island using a motorboat. This strike, according to Moscow, would have killed some of these soldiers who came to plant a flag and caused the survivors to flee. This version is impossible to verify independently. kyiv, for its part, announced on Monday that the Ukrainian flag was once again floating on this small piece of land in the Black Sea.
>> War in Ukraine: in the Black Sea, Serpents’ Island, a small territory with great strategic power
Serpents’ Island became iconic from the first day of the Russian invasion when a member of the small Ukrainian garrison defending it ordered the Russian ship demanding its surrender to go “fuck off”. Passed under Russian control, it was taken over by the Ukrainians last week, following intense bombardments. Moscow also claimed to withdraw from this territory “as a sign of goodwill“, after having “achieved” them “targets set”.