the last civilians were able to leave the Azovstal steel plant, the Ukrainian authorities now hope to evacuate the wounded and the soldiers

Serpents’ Island may well be a 17-hectare confetti emerging above the waves, but it is a strategic point in the Black Sea, allowing heavy threats to be posed but also being particularly exposed. From the first day of the conflict in Ukraine, the Russians attacked it to seize it. This gave rise to this episode, blown up by kyiv propaganda, in which Ukrainian coast guards radioed the Russian cruiser Moskva, which has since sunk, to go and “fuck off”giving this pebble a symbolic weight in addition to its strategic interest.

After claiming last week to have bombed the island and destroying a Russian battery, the Ukrainians announced on Monday a new strike which destroyed two Russian patrol boats near the island, and on Saturday they claimed to have destroyed a Russian landing ship there. − further illustration of its importance.

This territory of a few hectares indeed offers a threatening shooting platform everywhere around. It is about fifty kilometers from the mouth of the Danube, one of the main rivers of Europe and an important trade route, about a hundred kilometers from Odessa and theoretically allows you to hit the entire Ukrainian coast. It is also less than 200 kilometers from the major Romanian port of Constanta and 300 kilometers from the large Crimean Russian base in Sevastopol.

“The island is vulnerable”

In this war, “It is a fundamental, strategic point that will have to be monitored: it blocks air-sea access to the entire Ukrainian coastal fringe, it poses a threat to the mouth of the Danube”, explains Captain Eric Lavault, spokesperson for the French Navy. On such a platform, the Russians “can put anti-aircraft defense equipment, anti-ship defense equipment, but also medium-range missile systems in addition to the firepower of the ships of the Black Sea Fleet, it is a fulcrum that allows ‘be more confident on the approaches to the Ukrainian coasts’according to Igor Delanoë, deputy director of the Franco-Russian Observatory in Moscow and specialist in the Russian navy.

But on the other hand “the island is vulnerable”analyzes Michael Petersen of the American Naval War college. “Any occupant can be attacked, and it is difficult to protect such a small island”. “If the Ukrainians ever take a breather, there is a blow to go up. This can be a good subject of engagement of special forces »believes Eric Lavault.

In addition, the island offers a large maritime domain and the wealth that goes with it, in particular submarine gas deposits. Romania and Ukraine had to go to court in The Hague to settle the dispute between them over control of these resources. And the International Court of Justice finally ruled in 2009, finding that the island was Ukrainian but that most of the deposits surrounding it were Romanian.

For more details, you can read this article published at the beginning of the conflict:

Read also: Russian offensive on Serpents’ Island… and its gas fields

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