Group of Ukrainian intelligence officers who liberated Zmiinyi Island in 2022 were adrift at sea on rubber boat for over 24 hours

Commandos from Defence Intelligence of Ukraine (DIU) have recounted the liberation of Zmiinyi Island from Russian occupation. Ukrainian forces deployed 155-mm self-propelled howitzers and Uragan multiple-launch rocket systems on barges around the Danube Delta, firing directly on the island. On the day the Ukrainian flag was raised, a storm capsized a motorboat, leaving the commandos to endure 28 hours in the open sea on a rubber boat with oars.

Source: The Wall Street Journal (WSJ)

Details: A journalist from the WSJ visited Zmiinyi Island in early September and interviewed officers from the Timur Special Unit, the elite DIU force that took part in the retaking of the island in the summer of 2022.

The newspaper reports that the rocky stretch of land, located 20 miles off the coast, bears the scars of relentless Ukrainian strikes aimed at retaking it. The island is strewn with the wreckage from Russian military equipment and buildings reduced to rubble.

Zmiinyi Island gave Ukraine a foothold in the Black Sea and provided a vital boost to the struggling economy as billions of dollars in grain exports resumed.

The newspaper notes that the liberation of the island was also a symbolic victory for Ukraine, as on the first day of the war, when Russian warships approached and demanded that Ukrainians surrender, a border guard radioed back that the warships should "get f**ked".

"As the historical saying goes, 'Whoever controls Snake Island, controls the sea'," an officer serving in DIU, alias Ned, said in an interview on the island.

Ukraine's campaign to retake the island began in April 2022 with the sinking of the Russian Black Sea Fleet's flagship, the Moskva. Soon after, Ukraine launched continuous strikes on the island with missiles fired from drones and warplanes, sinking Russian boats and destroying a helicopter just as it landed.

Ukrainian forces deployed 155-mm self-propelled howitzers on barges and moved them around the Danube Delta to firing positions inaccessible from land. Uragan multiple-launch rocket systems delivered fire directly from the barges.

"As soon as we started working systematically from the middle of June 2022, we forced them to abandon the island in two weeks," said the DIU officer in charge of the operation, alias Shakespeare.

A career soldier who goes by the alias of Ramses and five other special forces officers from the Timur unit returned to the island to secure Ukraine's control over the territory.

They approached the cliff on the western side of the island in a low-slung riverboat under the cover of darkness. The four of them, led by Ramses, climbed the cliff and slowly made their way through buildings and past vehicles that had been mined by the retreating Russians. In the rain and fog, they began clearing the buildings from mines and collecting documents left behind in the rush. Ramses raised the Ukrainian flag on the island.

The weather worsened while the soldiers were ashore. As they attempted to return to the mainland, violent waves disabled two of their boat's motors and eventually capsized it, forcing them to switch to an inflatable boat powered only by oars.

The boat was swept out to sea, heading towards the gas drilling rigs where Russian troops were stationed.

The officers spent the night constantly scooping out the water that had entered the boat over the sides and using a pump to keep the boat inflated. They were rescued after 28 hours at sea.

The WSJ notes that the main battle in this part of the Black Sea is now raging for several gas rigs east of the island that Russia has seized. Russian forces have set up equipment at these rigs to monitor Ukrainian activities and track missiles and drones that Kyiv employs to target the occupied Crimean peninsula.

The Timur special forces unit recently sent about a dozen speedboats to attack the drilling rigs, targeting them with machine gun fire. They also shot down a modern Russian Su-30SM fighter jet.

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