From Reuters:
“Russian
forces withdraw from Ukraine's strategic Snake Island”
(A satellite
image shows an overview of Snake Island, Ukraine, June 21, 2022.)
Russian forces
have withdrawn from Ukraine's Snake Island, a strategic outpost in the Black
Sea, Russia's defence ministry and Ukraine's president's office said on
Thursday. Snake Island, which Russia occupied on the first day of its invasion,
achieved fame when Ukrainian border guards stationed there rejected a Russian
warship's demand for their surrender. read more "KABOOM! No Russian troops
on the Snake Island anymore. Our Armed Forces did a great job," Andriy
Yermak, head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy's office, wrote on
Twitter. read more
Russia's
defence ministry confirmed Russian troops had withdrawn from Snake Island,
calling it a "goodwill gesture" and saying the troops had fulfilled
the tasks assigned to them. The Russian ministry added the move showed Russia
was not impeding U.N. efforts to organise a humanitarian corridor to export
agricultural products out of Ukraine. Reuters was not immediately able to
verify the Ukrainian and Russian accounts.
On Wednesday
Russia said it was ready to work with the United Nations to combat the risks of
a global food crisis, following a conversation between Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, but no concrete measures
were announced at the time. Last month Britain's defence ministry said that if
Russia were able to consolidate its position on Snake Island with strategic air
defence and coastal defence cruise missiles, it could dominate the
north-western Black Sea.
Ukraine's
southern military command wrote on Facebook that Russian forces had evacuated
in two boats following a operation involving missile and artillery units. Zelenskiy's
chief of staff Yermak said Ukraine's armed forces drove Russian troops from the
island and said Russia's claim the withdrawal was out of goodwill was untrue. He
repeated Ukrainian accusations that Russia was provoking a global food crisis
by blocking Ukraine's ports and targeting storage facilities. Since Russia
invaded on Feb. 24, Ukrainian grain shipments from its Black Sea ports have
stalled and millions of tonnes of grain are stuck in silos.
Moscow says
the onus is on Kyiv to remove mines from the ports to free up shipping lanes and
says Western sanctions against it are worsening the situation. A first cargo
ship left the Russian-occupied Ukrainian port of Berdyansk in the Sea of Azov
in Ukraine's east, a local official said on Thursday, after Russia said the
port had been de-mined and was ready to resume grain shipments. Russia and
Ukraine account for nearly a third of global wheat supplies, while Russia is
also a key global fertiliser exporter and Ukraine is a major exporter of corn
and sunflower oil.
^ This is the
«Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!»
(«Російський військовий кораблю, іди нахуй») or "Russian Warship Go
F%$K Yourself" island now back in Ukrainian hands. ^
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.