The 13 Ukrainian soldiers who were said to have died on an island in the Black Sea last week after conspicuously refusing to surrender to the Russians have not died after all. They have been taken prisoner of war, the Ukrainian navy reported on its verified Facebook page.
ADN
Latest update:
14:15
Source:
AP
Read everything about the war between Russia and Ukraine in this file.
Ukraine last week released a telling audio recording of the clash between Ukrainian border guards and the Russians. It was then heard that a Russian naval vessel is calling on the soldiers on the island to surrender, otherwise they would be bombed.
After brief deliberations, the Ukrainians’ response was loud and clear: “Russian naval vessel, go fuck yourself†
Heap
Those would also have been their last words, which gave the soldiers on the Ukrainian mainland a hero status. President Volodimir Zelensky announced that the border guards would be posthumously honored as ‘Hero of Ukraine’, the country’s highest award. It is not clear whether he knew at the time that they were still alive or assumed they had been killed. Everything points to the latter.
Last weekend, the Ukrainian border guard said it was not giving up hope yet. The thirteen ‘heroes of Snake Island’ may still be alive after all. This is now also confirmed by the Ukrainian navy. The soldiers are still alive. It turns out they were taken prisoner of war.
The battles were for the small island of Zmiinji, or therefore also ‘Snake Island’. The island is an inhospitable rock in the western Black Sea, about 48 kilometers off the coast of Ukraine and Romania. It is near the shipping routes to Odessa, Ukraine’s third largest city.
Although the island is roughly only 16 hectares in size, a report last year by the impartial think tank Atlantic Council named it still important in Ukraine’s maritime territorial claims in the Black Sea, CNN wrote last week.
Free unlimited access to Showbytes? Which can!
Log in or create an account and never miss a thing from the stars.