The fighting is still ongoing this Wednesday on Serpents’ Island, according to the British Ministry of Defense. The Russian army effectively assured on Tuesday that it had fished out three additional bodies of “Ukrainian special forces soldiers” there in the Black Sea, bringing to 27 the total of corpses fished out after an attempt by kyiv to retake the strategic Serpent Island. A “failure”, according to Moscow. Why is this confetti emerging above the waves at the center of an armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia? 20 minutes explains everything about Serpents’ Island, a strategic point in the Black Sea that has become a symbol of resistance to the Russian offensive.
Serpents’ Island, the origin of the conflict
From the first day of the conflict in Ukraine, February 24, 2022, the Russians attacked Serpents’ Island to seize it. This gave rise to this episode, hyped up by kyiv propaganda, in which Ukrainian coast guards radioed the Russian cruiser Moskva, since sunk, to “fuck off” rather than surrender. From the outset, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the “heroic” death of these soldiers who “defended to the end” this small island against the Russians.
Many media had taken up the story of these 13 martyred soldiers [treize selon certaines sources, une cinquantaine selon d’autres] before the Ukrainian Navy does not indicate on Facebook that the soldiers were “alive and in good health”. For its part, Russian television broadcast images of these soldiers now detained in Crimea. This episode gave this pebble a symbolic weight but also made this tiny Serpent’s Island the subject of kyiv’s first major propaganda act. The government even launching a stamp to celebrate the event on which we see a soldier from behind giving the finger to the Russian cruiser Moscow, off the coast.
Serpents’ Island, mercilessly pounded
After claiming last week that it had bombed Serpents’ Island and destroyed a Russian battery, the Ukrainian army announced that it had destroyed two Russian Raptor-type patrol boats near the island, using Bayraktar drones. Last week is The Serna, a fast landing ship with a carrying capacity of 45 tons, which would have been hit, said the same source on Facebook. On May 8, kyiv allegedly destroyed a helicopter that was trying to drop off Russian paratroopers. Nearly 50 Moscow soldiers were killed in these serial attacks, according to the ukrainian media [27 corps auraient été repêchés]. In parallel, it would turn out that dolphins would have been sent by the Russian forces on a commando mission in the Black Sea.
Serpents’ Island, between conflict and strategy
Serpents’ Island is a territory of a few hectares [662 mètres d’est en ouest, 440 mètres du nord au sud] which offers, according to the British Ministry of Defense, an “all-around threatening firing platform”. This tiny territory is indeed about fifty kilometers from the mouth of the Danube, one of the main rivers of Europe and important trade route, about a hundred kilometers from Odessa and it theoretically allows to strike all the Ukrainian coast . Serpents’ Island is also less than 200 kilometers from the major Romanian port of Constanta and 300 kilometers from the major Russian base in Crimea, in Sevastopol.
In times of peace, the island offers a large maritime domain and the wealth that goes with it, in particular hydrocarbons. AFP recalls that Romania and Ukraine have also had to go to court to settle the dispute between them for control of these resources. The International Court of Justice finally ruled in 2009 and decided that the island was Ukrainian.
Serpents’ Island, a future fulcrum for Russia?
Until the start of the war in Ukraine, Serpents’ Island was held by a small contingent of Ukrainian border guards, according to International mail. “Vulnerable”, it has been the victim of intensive Russian shelling since February 24 and could, according to experts, become “a fundamental, strategic point that will have to be monitored”. “It blocks air and sea access to the entire Ukrainian coastal fringe, it poses a threat to the mouth of the Danube,” confirms Captain Eric Lavault, spokesperson for the French Navy, to AFP.
And the Russians would not be about to drop their annexation, wishing to ensure with such a platform enough to secure “anti-aircraft defense equipment, anti-ship defense, but also medium-range missile systems in addition of the firepower of the ships of the Black Sea Fleet,” said Igor Delanoë. According to the deputy director of the Franco-Russian Observatory in Moscow and a specialist in the Russian navy, Serpents’ Island “is a point of support which makes it possible to be more confident on the approaches to the Ukrainian coasts”.