The Ukrainian soldier who became a symbol of resistance for sending the Russian warship Moskva that attacked the island of the Serpents on the first day of the invasion of Ukraine to that country was not Marine Roman Gribov.
Whoever really said that sentence was only released from Russian captivity today: it is a border guard, whose identity is still secret for security reasons.
This was reported by the Ukrainian agency UNIAN, citing the adviser to the Defense Minister Oleksiy Kopytko.
Attributing the authorship of that symbolic phrase to a soldier of the navy free since March 24 like Gribov was a move designed to allow the release of those who had really made that gesture.
"Under other circumstances, he would never have been released," Kopytko said.
Before the intervention of the minister's advisor, the head of the border guard of the Island of the Snakes Bogdan Gotsky also told how things went that day.
"I was there when that sentence was said," Gotsky points out, explaining that the Russians have proposed an agreement to the border guards of the island.
Surrender in exchange for freedom and a large salary.
The guards refused and, only at that point, one of them sent Moskva to that country.
"That was my subordinate, a border guard," Gotsky points out.
At present, however, a large part of the Serpent Island garrison, including the border guards, is still a prisoner of the Russians.