RUSSIAN TROOPS LEAVE KEY BLACK SEA ISLAND
SLOVIANSK, Ukraine — Russian forces withdrew from a strategic Black Sea island Thursday, potentially easing the threat to the vital Ukrainian port city of Odesa, but kept up their push to encircle the last stronghold of resistance in the eastern province of Luhansk.
The Kremlin portrayed the pullout from Snake Island as a “goodwill gesture.” But Ukraine’s military claimed it forced the Russians to flee in two small speedboats following a barrage of Ukrainian artillery and missile strikes. The exact number of troops was not disclosed.
“Unable to withstand the impact of our artillery, missile and aviation units, the Russian occupiers have left Snake Island. The Odesa region is completely liberated,” the Ukrainian military said in its regular social media update Thursday evening.
A senior Ukrainian military official, Oleksiy Gromov, earlier said Kyiv was planning to deploy troops to Snake Island, but did not specify a timeline.
“At the moment, we control [the island] with the help of our weapons: long-range artillery, rocket units and aviation,” Gromov said.
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the withdrawal was intended to demonstrate that Moscow isn’t hampering U.N. efforts to establish a humanitarian corridor for exporting agricultural products from Ukraine.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of blockading Ukrainian ports to prevent exports of grain, contributing to a global food crisis. Russia has denied that and said Ukraine needs to remove mines from the Black Sea to allow safe navigation.
At a NATO summit in Madrid, British Prime Minister Boris Johnson billed the Russian pullout as a sign that Ukraine will prevail in the war launched by Russian President Vladimir Putin. “In the end it will prove impossible for Putin to hold down a country that will not accept” occupation, Johnson said.
Speaking on a visit to Turkmenistan on Thursday, Putin said his goals in Ukraine haven’t changed since the start of the war. He said they were “the liberation of the Donbas, the protection of these people and the creation of conditions that would guarantee the security of Russia itself.”