Ukraine War: Snake Island, One Year Later - Part 2

Hi, I’m Rick Barron, your host, and welcome to That’s Life, I Swear

This is a follow up to last week’s episode of Snake Island, a year later. In our last episode, I shared how 80 Ukrainian soldiers occupied Snake Island. Their mission was to protect the island from the Russian takeover. The odds were stacked against them, but Captain Hodsky and his team saw it only one way, defend, and if required, die defending to the last man.

Let’s jump into this 

In the previous episode we ended with the Russian bombarding Snake Island and taking it over. Ukraine thought the 80 men defending the island died in the process. A priest was sent out to bring the dead soldiers back for military burial. Upon landing on the island, he discovers that all the men had been taken prisoners and that the island was now under Russian control. It was then that the priest, Father Vasyl Vyrozub was handcuffed and taken prison. 

Our story picks up here.

The phrase, “Russian warship, go fuck yourself!” went viral and quickly became an international battle cry. It became a symbol of Ukraine’s heroic defiance in the face of Russian aggression. The five words went on a great journey, traveling far beyond the transmission station where they were first uttered. They perfectly summed up Ukraine’s response to Russia’s assault, to its arrogance and presumption, that Ukraine would just roll over and give up.

Soon the phrase was appearing everywhere from electronic road signs, in cafes, shops, Ukrainian government buildings, and on the uniforms of soldiers fighting and dying on the frontline. 

What was it about this phrase that gave it legs? One explanation was Zelenskiy himself, a master communicator who understood the power of the messaging. He quickly understood that the story of Snake Island and its brave defenders was a powerful PR message. It inspired support at home and inviting international support and more importantly, military aid from abroad.

President Zelenskiy speaks to House of Commons. Courtesy of: BBC

In March of 2022, speaking to the House of Commons, Zelenskiy referenced Churchill’s finest hour speech and pledged to fight the Russians and to never surrender, much as Britain had done in the darkest days of the second world war. He told the British MPs: “When a Russian ship demanded that our guys lay down their weapons, they answered him. As firmly as one cannot say in this parliament. And we felt the power. The great power of our people who will persecute the invader to the end.”

Captain Bohdan Hotsky. Courtesy of: The Guardian

You’re probably wondering about what happened to Hotsky and his team. Turns out he was very much alive. On the day of the invasion, the Moskva and Vasily Bykov bombarded Snake Island relentlessly. Two Russian groups stormed the territory in darkness, approaching from north and south. 

The defenders of the island realized it was hopeless. They were outnumbered and cut off. The decision was made to lay their arms down and surrender. The entire Ukrainian team were loaded into a boat and taken, blindfolded, to the naval base in Sevastopol, located in Crimea, a 24-hour sea journey. 

In March of 2022, Hotsky found himself being blindfolded again, and flown 620 miles to Stary Oskol, a Russian city in the north of the Belgorod region, which adjoins eastern Ukraine. He found himself in a detention center, locked in a cell with two Ukrainian soldiers from the city of Kharkiv. His border guard colleagues were on another corridor. 

Father Vasyl Vyrozub. Courtesy of: The Guardian

As for our priest, Father Vasyl Vyrozub was taken to a processing camp outside the town of Shebekino, 90 miles from Stary Oskol. All prisoners were forced to wear nothing but T-shirts and to kneel outside in the snow, which was -20C at the time, for two or three hours, with their arms behind their heads. If you raised your head to look around, they whacked you with the butt of a gun,” the priest recalled. Several lost consciousness. The prisoners finally received food on their third day of capture.

The torture intensified when Vasyl was transferred to Stary Oskol and put in the same bleak penal institution as Hotsky. The Russians slowly started to play with his mind and belittle him as a human being. They took away his priest’s robes, cut off his ponytail and handed him a black uniform. And then they began to beat him. He soon found himself in a cell thinking he was alone, but found himself reunited with the two other pastors and the doctor who had accompanied him to Snake Island.

The worst moment came in late March for Vasyl, when the guards stripped him naked and placed him in a what was called a freezing punishment cell with rubber walls. For the next three days he found himself in a cell that was impossible to sit or lie down. It was freezing cold and virtually impossible to get any sleep. He found moments where he felt like he was losing his mind and that all hope of rescue was never coming. He once said goodbye to life and prayed he would die soon. He said he was losing the will to live any longer. 

In April of 2022, Hotsky’s horror ended. He boarded a plane that flew to Crimea. When he arrived, his eyes were covered with a mask, and then driven in a truck through the southern part of Ukraine to a crossing point in the Zaporizhzhia region. Upon arrival, his mask was removed and taken off the truck. Was this the end? Would he be shot here on the dirt road and left for dead?

Much to his surprise, he was part of a prisoner exchange. The Russians handed back Hotsky and eight other soldiers captured on Snake Island. He couldn’t believe it when he saw his soldiers and happy knowing he was out of prison.

During the same month, Vasyl learned about the release of the two priests and the medic that were with him the day they went to Snake Island. Hearing this news only made him feel distraught, wondering if he would ever be released. He got out in May, in a similar prisoner swap. He lost a lot of weight, 33 pounds as a result of “terrible” food.

When Hotsky returned home, he found he was a national hero and was promoted to major.  As I write this episode, the majority of Hotsky’s border guard colleagues remain in a Russian jail. To this day, no knows of their status.

Roman Hrybov. Courtesy of: MorskiHR

Zelenskiy gave a medal to Roman Hrybov, a border service employee stationed with Hotsky on Snake Island who was credited with being the person who told the Russian warship to go fuck itself.

With the return of Vasyl and Hotsky, plus Roman being awarded with a medal from President Zelenskiy, another idea came to the surface that would celebrate the bravery of Ukraine’s men on Snake Island.

Igor Smelyansky. Courtesy of: Post & Parcel

Igor Smelyansky, general director of Ukrposhta, the national postal service, started a stamp contest and asked the Ukrainian people to submit ideas commemorating the battle of Snake Island. He had over 50 entries to select from for a new postal stamp. In the end the winning stamp was of a Ukrainian soldier giving the middle finger to a large grey battleship: the Moskva. On the margins of the perforated sheets were the words “Russian warship, go fuck yourself” and “Glory to Ukraine, to the heroes, glory”.

New Ukrainian stamp.  Courtesy of: Atlantic Council

It didn’t take long for the stamp to bring the Ukrainian people to their feet and cheer. They found the stamp to be representative of their strong defiance against Russia. It was democratic, just like Ukraine.

Once the stamp was available at local post offices, the lines to purchase were very long. People were patient. No one left their place in line, even when the air-raid sirens sounded.

Igor was overwhelmed with the people’s response to the stamp. He walked outside his office and took time to poses for selfies, holding a sheet of the new stamps. There were over 70,000 stamps on sale that day, which went very fast. The stamp was a sensation, a piece of history. 

Ironically, Ukraine launched two Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles the following evening from a secret location that slammed into the Moskva, about 80 miles south of Odesa, close to Snake Island. The Moskva was the first Russian flagship to be sunk since the 1905 Russo-Japanese war and the largest Russian boat to be lost in conflict since 1945. It’s now resting at the bottom of the Black Sea.

Moskva sinking. Courtesy of: NBC News

Film footage showed a plume of black smoke rising from the ship. How many of its crew survived is uncertain. What is certain is that the boat sank in the early hours of April 14 while being towed back to Sevastopol. 

On June 30, 2022, 4 months after the initial attack, the Russians left Snake Island. The Kremlin said it was leaving the island as a “goodwill gesture”. The island was deserted once more.

For now, Snake Island is free and it is Ukrainian.

What can we learn from this story? What’s the take away

Let it be said that the Ukrainian people are tough as granite. What took place on Snake Island was symbolic of Ukraine’s demeanor to never think of the impossible but rather the possible.

A Ukrainian citizen said it best when purchasing the Snake Island postage stamps, the first day of their release, and I quote:

“It’s a symbol. It shows our inner patriotism. I feel this,” she says. “Snake Island didn’t surrender. I’m not going to surrender. Nor is my husband. Take a look at the queue. The stamp is a bit of paper. It may be small, but it’s powerful– the same as Ukraine.” End quote

Well, there you go. That's life, I swear.

For further information regarding the material covered in this episode, I invite you to visit my website, that you can find on either Apple Podcasts/iTunes or Google Podcasts, for show notes calling out key pieces of content mentioned and the episode transcript.

As always, I thank you for listening. 

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