Ukrainian soldiers in front of the remains of the lighthouse on Zmiinyi Island, also known as “Snake Island” (Pierre Bairin/CNN)
Snake Island holds a special place in Ukrainian folklore, now more than ever. Its defiant defense – when a Russian warship was famously told to piss off – and subsequent recapture rallied a nation in the early months of the conflict with Russia and pierced the myth of the invaders’ superiority.
Now, lashed by winter winds, it remains firmly in Ukrainian hands – a boulder that holds both symbolic and strategic importance.
A CNN team became the first foreign media outlet to visit the island since it was retaken in June and spoke to the commander of the operation that led to its liberation.
Snake Island, also known as Zmiinyi Island, is a few acres of rock and grass, treeless and difficult to access, located about 30 miles (48 kilometers) off the Ukrainian coast, near the sea border with Romania.
Getting there proved challenging: pitching from wave to wave in a small boat for an hour, showered with spray, in temperatures below freezing. The Black Sea can be unforgiving, as can its dangerous shoreline. On the way back our steerable boat got stuck on a sandbank and it took six hours in the dark before we were transferred one at a time to another ship.
Snake Island is now a desolate place, strewn with rubble, its few buildings reduced to rubble, its half-submerged jetty shattered by the tide. It’s a graveyard of expensive military equipment – and littered with duds and mines. This is no place to be sloppy.
The CNN team saw at least four different types of landmines, Russian Pantsir surface-to-air missile systems, and an almost intact Tor anti-aircraft missile complex. There was also the carcass of a hit Russian military helicopter.
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