Ukraine claims to have recovered Serpents' Island

A Russian time, the island of Serpents again becomes under Ukrainian control.

Ukraine, via its army, announced on Thursday that it had regained control of Serpents' Island in the Black Sea.

Russian forces had previously withdrawn from this symbolic territory.

Moscow claimed to leave the island "as a sign of goodwill", after having achieved the "set objectives".

"We have effectively reestablished our control over Serpents' Island," said a senior official of the Ukrainian army general staff, Oleksiï Gromov, quoted by the Interfax-Ukraine press agency, adding that he it was a "physical control" of the soldiers.

According to him, the Ukrainian soldiers who participated in the operation, however, returned to their barracks and did not specify whether soldiers remained on the island.

Read alsoDIRECT.

War in Ukraine: kyiv claims to have regained control of Serpents' Island

This information was quickly denied by Russia.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have carried out a strike Thursday morning on the island with "high precision missiles", killing some of the Ukrainian soldiers who went to plant a flag there and causing the survivors to flee.

An emblematic island since the start of the conflict

kyiv had however announced on Monday that the Ukrainian flag was floating again on this small piece of land located in the northwest of the Black Sea.

This island became emblematic from the first day of the Russian invasion when a member of the small Ukrainian garrison ordered the Russian ship which demanded its surrender to “go fuck itself”.

Passed under Russian control, it was taken over by the Ukrainians last week, following intense bombardments.