Russia’s Snake Island retreat gives hope for Odesa grain exports
PM maintains chipper front as his Spanish break ends
While the Tory Party was busy fighting a desperate rearguard action on the Home Front, the Prime Minister was bounding around the Nato summit in Madrid, exuding the glow of a fine summer’s day. He chummed around with Macron and Trudeau, formed a Biden bromance, and engaged in a war of words so surreal that I half-wondered if the whole conference wasn’t an elaborate simulation, or an episode of South Park.
The Prime Minister attributed Vladimir Putin’s aggression in Ukraine to that pet peeve of gender studies post-grads everywhere – “toxic masculinity” – and said none of it would have happened if the Russian president had been a woman.
G7 leaders had sat around bantering about Mr Putin’s penchant for topless posing, which is one thing that would be different if he was a woman.
But all summer lovin’ must come to an end, and soon Johnson was giving his valedictory press conference before the long journey home. He adopted a relentlessly upbeat, staccato rhythm and wore a colourful Nato badge – the kind of thing a child might return home from nursery wearing.
“The cost of freedom is always worth paying,” he proclaimed, loftily, before committing to raising military spending. The noble sentiments occasionally veered into Davos-man territory, as if generic statesmanlike lines had been fed into a random quote generator. This wasn’t just a summit, but a “global congregation”. We heard about “deterrence by denial” and being the Global South’s “allies” in their “transition to a green future”.
The PM, no stranger to playing different roles, relished his latest guise of global ambassador. He bounced jubilantly on the spot. At various points he was 90 per cent hand gesture. You might even say he was enjoying himself.
A few British reporters had a go at raining on his parade in the Q&A.
“You’ve been out of the country eight days, are you actually looking forward to returning home given the ongoing speculation about your future,” asked Chris Mason of the BBC.
The PM maintained his chipper front. “Yes – I can’t tell you how much”, he barked, unconvincingly. “I enjoyed being in Kigali and Germany – but there’s no place like home. I’m keen to get back,” he insisted, struggling to get the words out with a straight face.
Harry Cole of The Sun asked him to weigh in on Putin’s retaliatory slur to the G7 leaders. (Mr Putin had responded by saying that it would be a “disgusting sight” to see Western leaders in a state of undress.)
The air of bonhomie reached its apotheosis when a Ukrainian reporter offered passionate thanks for the Prime Minister’s support of Volodymyr Zelensky. And this rather summed up Johnson’s time in Madrid. He is emerging as one of those British acts that’s considerably more popular abroad than they are at home.
RUSSIAN forces yesterday abandoned Ukraine’s Snake Island ending one of the longest-running battles of the war in a victory for Kyiv that raises hopes that a blockade on critical grain exports from Odessa could be lifted.
The Russian evacuation, on the second day of the Nato summit in Madrid, followed intense Ukrainian artillery bombardments and is likely to be hailed as proof that Western-supplied weapons can turn the war.
After the summit, Boris Johnson said: “If you wanted evidence of the amazing ability of the Ukrainians to fight back, to overcome the adversity and to repel the Russians, then look at what has happened today on Snake Island, where again Russia has had to cede ground.”
Moscow’s ministry of defence said its forces evacuated the island as a “goodwill gesture” to demonstrate that Russia is not impeding United Nations efforts to reopen sea lanes to Ukraine’s Black Sea ports. “To organise humanitarian grain corridors as part of the implementation of joint agreements reached with the participation of the UN, the Russian Federation decided to leave its positions on Zmiinyi Island,” it said yesterday.
Unofficial pro-russian Telegram channels disputed that account, saying the withdrawal was forced by shelling from Western-supplied artillery that made holding the island a “suicide” mission. Ukraine said Russian forces fled the outpost after missile attacks.
“During the night, as a result of another successful stage of the military
‘He wore a colourful Nato badge – the kind of thing a child might return home from nursery wearing’
operation with fire strikes by our missile and artillery units on the Snake Island, the opponent hurriedly evacuated the remains of the garrison with two speed boats and probably left the island,” Ukraine’s southern operations command said yesterday.
“Snake Island is covered in fire, explosions are bursting. The results of the operation are being finalised.”
The ministry of defence said Ukrainian forces would land on the island “soon.” Valeriy Zaluzhnyi, commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, said Ukrainian-made howitzers and unspecified foreign weapons were used to pound Russian positions on Snake Island.
Satellite images published shortly after the attack showed smoke billowing from the jetty on the north of the island, with another smouldering location inland. There were unconfirmed reports that a Russian landing vessel had struck a mine in the sea of Azov near Mariupol.
Snake Island is 42 acres of rock that was believed to be the burial place of Achilles. Russia seized it on the first day of the war, when a landing force led by the cruiser Moskva ordered the tiny garrison of border guards to surrender.
The reply – “Russian warship, f--off ” – became a popular slogan of resistance in Ukraine that has appeared on billboards, T-shirts, and a coffee brand.
It was initially reported that the border guards were killed in the subsequent bombardment but they were later released as part of a prisoner swap.
Russia wanted to hold the island to support an amphibious assault to capture Odesa. Those plans were shelved after Russia’s blitzkrieg collapsed in March, but control of the island became crucial to the war of economic attrition.
Ukraine and the West have accused Russia of deterring civilian shipping from using Ukraine’s southern ports of Odesa and Mykoliaev in order to strangle millions of tons of grain exports destined for Africa and the Middle East and so spark a global food crisis.
Kyrylo Budanov, Ukraine’s defence intelligence chief, said in May that whoever controlled the island controlled “the surface, and to some extent the air, situation in southern Ukraine”.
“Whoever controls the island can block the movement of civilian vessels in all directions to the south of Ukraine.”
After Ukraine sank the Moskva in late April, the Black Sea fleet’s main airdefence and surveillance asset, a desperate air and sea battle began as Russia tried to turn the island into a radar and anti-aircraft platform.
Over the first week of May, the Ukrainian ministry of defence released surveillance videos showing drone, missile, and air strikes on the island and the Russian ships trying to reinforce it.
Documented Russian losses that week included a Strela anti-aircraft battery, two Raptor patrol boats and a supply vessel with TOR air-defence system.
However, despite the propaganda value of the videos, the Russians could not be dislodged. No matter how many boats were intercepted, they still managed to reinforce their garrison and air defence systems were replaced almost as quickly as they were destroyed.
Ukraine’s attempts to retake the island escalated earlier this month after Western weapon systems arrived.
On June 20, Russia claimed to have defeated what it called a “mad attempt to take control of Snake Island”, shooting down two Ukrainian SU-25 attack jets and 13 of 15 drones and forcing Ukraine to abandon a landing of troops.
On the same day, the Ukrainians struck three Russian-controlled drilling platforms to the east of the island, believed to house radars and intelligence gathering equipment. Russian officials said three people were injured and seven were missing after the attack.
On Tuesday, Southern Wind, a prorussian military Telegram channel, said the island was being hit by all-night shelling and rocket strikes designed to exhaust the defenders’ supply of airdefence missiles and allow Ukrainian air strikes to proceed unhindered.
“Following the deployment of French Caesar howitzers and Tochka-u missiles to the Odesa region the intensity of artillery fire sharply increased,” Rybar, another pro-russian military Telegram channel reported yesterday in comments that contradicted the Russian account of the withdrawal.
“Today, physically controlling the island is equivalent to suicide,” it said.
Ukraine has not commented in detail on which foreign weapons were deployed in the battle for Snake Island.
‘Russian warship, f--- off ’ became a resistance slogan on billboards, T-shirts and even a brand of coffee