"KABOOM! There are no more Russian troops on Snake Island." This is a Twitter tweet from the Ukrainian President's Chief of Staff on June 30.
After the close exchange of fire since mid-June, the Russian army officially announced the withdrawal of this small island on the western edge of the Black Sea, which was immediately seized from the first day of the invasion, claiming that the Russian side had "completed the task" and that the withdrawal was only to help the United Nations open a humanitarian channel for food exports. "An act of kindness".
Snake Island, with an area of only 170,000 square meters (less than one-fifth of Hong Kong's Peng Chau), has an excellent strategic location on the west coast of the Black Sea.
To the west, Snake Island guards the mouth of the Danube Delta and is only 45 kilometers away from Romania; the closest Ukrainian coastal town, Vylkovo, is about 35 kilometers away from Snake Island. The first stop in the port city of Odessa, 145 kilometers north.
The Snake Island could serve as a bridgehead for the Russian navy to conquer the southwestern coast of Ukraine as it dominates the Black Sea, and would deter any possible naval support from Romania.
Therefore, at the beginning of the war, the Russian army, who attempted to outflank most of the major areas of Ukraine quickly, first took down Snake Island on the first day.
Entering April, the war situation changed drastically, the Russian army concentrated on attacking the Udon Bass; the Crimean southern front was in Kherson, Mykolaiv and Zaporizhzhia. Formed a defensive line to resist the Ukrainian counterattack; on the front line of Kharkiv, the second largest city in the northeast, although the Russian army was bombarded continuously, it was mostly blocked near the Russian-Ukrainian border line 25 minutes away from the center of the city; in Udondon In Bass, the Russian army used the tactics of the First World War, and used a large number of artillery bombardments to slowly advance. The Ukrainian army with insufficient firepower was slowly retreating.
In such a battle situation, the importance of Snake Island to the Russian army has changed from a bridgehead for the next wave of offensive to a frontier guarding the control of the Black Sea.
In mid-April, after the Ukrainian army sank the flagship cruiser "Moskva" of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet, the small Snake Island became an "unsinkable warship" of the Russian side, which was equipped with air defense, missiles and radar. system, on which Russian naval personnel are also stationed.
The Ukrainian side has never given up its deployment to retake Snake Island.
More than a month ago, Ukraine had launched an onslaught of drones and fighter jets on Snake Island, but has since paused.
By June 17, British intelligence confirmed that Ukraine had sunk a Russian military supply ship on Snake Island with a Harpoon anti-ship missile.
Since then, Ukraine has apparently launched a fierce attack on Snake Island.
On the 20th, the Ukrainian side launched an attack on the island and a nearby natural gas platform, and the sound of the explosion reached Virkovo, 35 kilometers away.
On the 22nd, the Ukrainian side released satellite images showing smoke from many places on Snake Island, claiming that it was successfully attacked by the Ukrainian side.
On the same day that the Russian side announced its withdrawal, the Ukrainian side stated that it successfully destroyed the Russian Pantsir-S1 (Pantsir-S1) air defense system on the island.
For the withdrawal of the Russian army, some Russian military bloggers expressed their support, arguing that Russia should put resources into the "liberation of the Donbass", and some bloggers believed that the French-made CAESAR automatic artillery and Soviet-made support The Tochka-U tactical ballistic missile has arrived in Odessa, putting pressure on the Russian army on Snake Island.
KABOOM!
No Russian troops on the Snake Island anymore. Our Armed Forces did a great job.
More kaboom news to follow. All will be 🇺🇦 pic.twitter.com/ItdP3oQvHK
— Andriy Yermak (@AndriyYermak) June 30, 2022
Snake Island, since the start of the Russian war, has always been of great symbolic significance to Ukrainians.
On February 24, the Russian army called on the island troops stationed on the island to surrender, but the Ukrainian personnel responded with a swear word (translated in English as "go fuck yourself"), which has become an anti-Russian slogan for Ukraine to boost morale.
However, after the Russian army withdraws from Snake Island, it is unknown whether Ukraine will regain the island immediately.
People from the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), a Washington-based think tank, told The Washington Post that Ukrainian troops are unlikely to retake Snake Island, and they don't have to do it - they need to drive out the Russians , and they did.
Since the Russian army still has the naval superiority in the Black Sea, the deployment of the Ukrainian army on the Snake Island can easily be attacked by the Russian army in turn.
Driving away the Russian army can be regarded as dismantling a Russian bridgehead, but it does not mean that the Ukrainian army will rebuild one immediately.
However, the recapture of Snake Island was the first step for Uzbekistan to open up the seaway on the west coast of the Black Sea.
If Europe and the United States double the anti-ship weapons support for Ukraine to the point where it can effectively deter Russian ships from approaching the west coast of the Black Sea, installing the anti-ship system on the Snake Island will give Ukraine tactical space to clear the mines used to guard against the Russian Navy. , at least open up the seaway from Odessa to the Romanian Black Sea port, so that the food that has been stored for a long time can be transported out.
If the grain can be shipped successfully, this will ease the financial pressure on Ukraine (the Ukrainian government is facing a monthly deficit of $5 billion), and on the other hand, it will free up the grain silos for the July harvest.
In terms of the overall war situation, Russia has obviously used a war of attrition since April, betting that the European and American support for Ukraine will not be sustainable in the long run.
The Ukrainian side wants to reverse this war situation, is to change the current situation of the Russian army's steady and slow invasion, at least resist the Russian army's attack, form a deadlock situation where Russia can't do anything, and even re-occupy the land that the Russian army has won.
From this perspective, the recapture of Snake Island, which had been occupied by the Russian army for four months, was indeed a small turn in the war.
But whether this turn will be reversed again depends on whether the Ukrainian army, which has successively obtained longer-range artillery from the West, can stop the slow advance of the Russian army in the Udong Donbass, or whether it can retake Kherson on the southern front. Such a Russian-controlled important place.
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