Russia withdraws from the strategic Snake Island in the Black Sea

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"Fuck you!"

the Ukrainians told the Russians and this Thursday it happened.

of its soldiers from an island in the Black Sea that they occupied on the first day of the invasion and through which an important export route for agricultural goods passes.

Although the Kremlin has specified that

, Ukraine has assured that the Russian goodbye has been the result of an intense attack launched in recent hours.

Snake Island (Zmiinyi in Ukrainian), barely a square kilometer in area, is 48 kilometers from the Ukrainian coast and about 300 west of Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014. Since they occupied the island, the Russians have been subject to to constant Ukrainian artillery fire.

These efforts were joined last week by the

system , provided by the US and with a high power of destroying targets such as fortifications.

"KABOOM!"

Andriy Yermak, chief of staff of President Volodymyr Zelensky, published this Thursday in a trill.

"

. "

In other photographs, also shared on social networks, at least five large columns of dark gray smoke could be seen emerging from various points on the island, located off the Ukrainian coast of the Odessa region.

Ukraine sinks another Russian Black Sea fleet ship with two Harpoon-type missiles

In contrast, the Russians, under pressure from the international community to help lift the blockade on Ukrainian grain exports, have defined their departure from the island as an act of good faith.

This is how the Russian Ministry of Defense referred to the event in a statement, published a few hours after it was announced that a cargo ship with 7,000 tons of grain had set sail from the port of the occupied city of Berdyansk.

Turkey is trying to extract from the Russians and Ukrainians a

Ukraine's countryside through the Black Sea, in order to alleviate the growing problems of food supply and inflation.

Earlier this month, Ankara presented an offer apparently satisfactory to the parties, although not definitive.

Moscow has assured that there was no naval blockade and has accused Ukraine of having closed its own roads by mining the perimeter of its coasts.

The seizure of Snake Island may, in the eyes of many observers, facilitate trade.

The enclave fell into Russian hands on February 24 last.

President Zelensky's account of what happened there, which later turned out to be partially false, claimed that the

invaders, before losing his life.

kyiv later admitted that the soldiers were still alive, albeit as Russian prisoners of war.

Not surprisingly, that hurtful phrase has become a kind of slogan for the fighters who defend Ukraine.

The image of a soldier on Snake Island, showing the Russians the common finger, became a coveted postage stamp in that country.

"I thank the defenders of the Odessa region who took the maximum measures to liberate such a strategically important part of our territory," Valeriy Zaluzhny, chief of the Ukrainian Army General Staff, said on Thursday.

It remains unclear whether those who tried unsuccessfully to protect Snake Island on the first day of hostilities are among the 144 Ukrainian soldiers who kyiv announced on Wednesday will return home thanks to a prisoner swap with Russia.

The same number of Russian troops will be released.

Yes, there will be, according to the newspaper 'The New York Times', some of the soldiers who participated in the

in Mariupol, who surrendered after an atrocious siege.

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