“Special agents of the Main Directorate of Intelligence said that on the day when the Ukrainian flag was raised on Zmiiny Island, a storm overturned a motor boat and the military spent 28 hours in the open sea on a rubber boat with oars.”, — write: www.pravda.com.ua
Special agents of the Main Directorate of Intelligence said that on the day when the Ukrainian flag was raised on Zmiiny Island, a storm overturned a motor boat and the military spent 28 hours in the open sea on a rubber boat with oars.
Source: The Wall Street Journal
Details: At the beginning of September, the journalist of the American publication visited the Snake Island and talked with the officers of the special unit “Timur”, an elite unit of military intelligence of Ukraine, who participated in the recapture of the island in the summer of 2022.
As the WSJ writes, the rocky patch of land 20 miles off the coast is scarred by continuous Ukrainian attacks to reclaim it. In addition, the island is littered with mutilated remains of Russian military equipment and buildings that have turned into piles of rubble.
Zmiiny Island was given to Ukraine bridgehead in the Black Sea and threw a lifeline to the economy as billions worth of grain exports resumed.
The publication reminds that the reconquest of the island has also become a symbolic victory for Ukraine, because on the first day of the war, when Russian warships approached and demanded the Ukrainians to surrender, the border guard answered on the radio that the warships should “go to x**”.
“As the historical saying goes: ‘Whoever controls Snake Island controls the sea,'” said an officer of the Main Intelligence Directorate with the call sign Ned in an interview on the island.
Ukraine’s efforts to return the island began in April 2022 with the sinking of the flagship of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, the ship “Moskva”. Soon after, Ukraine launched a sustained attack on the island with missiles fired from drones and warplanes, sinking Russian boats and destroying a helicopter as soon as it landed.
Ukrainian forces placed 155mm self-propelled howitzers on barges and moved them around the Danube Delta to firing positions inaccessible from land. Reactive salvo systems “Uragan” fired directly from the barges.
“As soon as we started working systematically from mid-June 2022, we forced them to leave the island in two weeks,” said the GUR officer in charge of the operation, with the call sign Shakespeare.
Military personnel Ramses and five other special forces from the special unit “Timur” returned to the island to ensure Ukraine’s control over it.
They approached the rock on the west side of the island in a low-slung riverboat under cover of darkness. The four of them, led by Ramses, climbed the rock and slowly made their way through the buildings and past the machinery that had been mined by the retreating Russians. Under the rain and fog, they began to demine buildings and collect documents that had been left behind in their haste. Ramses raised the Ukrainian flag on the island.
While the military was ashore, the weather worsened. On the way back to the mainland, stormy waves knocked out two of their boat’s engines and then capsized it, forcing them to transfer to an inflatable boat with no engine and only oars.
The boat drifted into the sea, in the direction of gas drilling rigs where Russian troops were stationed.
The troopers spent the night constantly draining the water that entered the boat over the sides and used a pump to keep the boat inflated. They were rescued after 28 hours at sea.
The WSJ notes that the main battle in this part of the Black Sea is now over several gas rigs east of the island that have been seized by Russia. Enemy troops have placed equipment there to monitor Ukrainian forces and track missiles and drones that Kyiv uses to target the occupied Crimean peninsula.
Recently, the special unit “Timur” sent about a dozen high-speed boats to attack drilling rigs. They were fired at with machine guns, shooting down a modern Russian Su-30SM fighter.
Read also: Lust for life. The story of a GUR special officer who fell from a boat and swam in the open sea for 14 hours