Russia 'Withdraws" from Snake Island; Ukraine Says it Shooed Enemy

Russia says it is tactically withdrawing from Zmeiny (Snake) Island, a strategic Black Sea landmass off the southern coast near the city of Odesa, to allow for grain exports.

"On June 30, as a step of goodwill, the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation completed their assigned tasks on Zmeiny Island and withdrew the garrison stationed there," Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a briefing on Thursday. "Thus, it has been demonstrated to the world community that the Russian Federation does not interfere with the efforts of the UN to organize a humanitarian corridor for the export of agricultural products from the territory of Ukraine," he added.

Konashenkov said this decision "will not allow Kyiv to speculate on the topic of the impending food crisis, referring to the impossibility of exporting grain due to Russia's total control of the northwestern part of the Black Sea."

"Now the word is up to the Ukrainian side, which has not yet cleared the Black Sea coast near its shores, including port waters," Konashenkov said.

Ukraine, on the other side, claims its military pushed Russian forces from Snake Island. “Unable to withstand the fire of our artillery, missile and air strikes, the occupiers left Snake Island,” General Valery Zaluzhny, Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said.

The Island was made famous when Moscow first captured it in February. A Ukrainian soldier posted on the island told an attacking Russian warship to “go * yourself," which has become one of the most popular Ukrainian slogans of resistance since the invasion. The Ukrainian postal service soon issued a stamp showing a Ukrainian soldier giving the finger to the Russian cruiser Moskva.