Zelensky thanks soldiers at Snake Island on 500th day of war

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky commemorated the 500th day of the war against Russia with a video salute to his soldiers filmed on Snake Island, which became a symbol of resistance early on in the fighting.

Zelensky said that the retaking of the Black Sea island a year ago “is a great proof that Ukraine will regain every bit of its territory” and thanked his troops in a video posted to Facebook Saturday.

The small island is widely known as the site of a viral video posted early in the war showing a Ukrainian soldier saying “Russian warship, go f-ck yourself” in response to a demand from Moscow’s forces that the island either be surrendered or bombed.

Russia took control of the island in February 2022, but Ukraine took it back at the end of June 2022 following a series of military strikes.

“Let the freedom that all our heroes of different times wanted for Ukraine and that must be won right now be a tribute to all those who gave their lives for Ukraine,” Zelensky said in Saturday’s video, in which he climbed off a boat and walked across a rocky stretch to lay flowers at a memorial. “We will definitely win!”

It was not clear when the video was shot, as Zelensky was in Turkey on Saturday. The president announced he would be returning with five commanders from the country’s Azov Battalion, who defended the southern port city of Mariupol from inside a massive steel plant during an 80-day Russian siege, The New York Times reported. They had surrendered to Russia and were later sent to Turkey in a prisoner swap negoitiated by Turkey.

“We are returning home from Turkey and bringing our heroes home,” Zelensky tweeted. “They will finally be with their families.”

The reason for celebration came as intense fighting continued across Ukraine’s east and south.

A Russian rocket strike on the town of Lyman killed eight civilians and wounded 13 others early Saturday, Ukraine’s interior ministry said. The strike also set a house, printing shop, and three cars ablaze, the BBC reported.

The bombing came after 10 people — including a 95-year-old woman — were killed and another 40 were injured in a rocket strike on an apartment building in Lviv on Thursday, in what the mayor of the city called “one of the biggest attacks” on the civilian infrastructure in the region.

In other parts of the country, Ukraine reported gains around Bakhmut, the town at the center of some of the war’s bloodiest battles for months.

Russian forces in the war-torn town are likely experiencing low morale amid the Ukrainian counteroffensive, the UK Ministry of Defense said in an update posted to Twitter Saturday.

“Ukrainian forces have made steady gains to both the north and south of the Russian-held town,” the intelligence agency wrote. “Russian defenders are highly likely struggling with poor morale, a mix of disparate units and a limited ability to find and strike Ukrainian artillery.”

“The Russian leadership almost certainly see it as politically unacceptable to concede Bakhmut, which has a symbolic weight as one of the few Russian gains in the last 12 months,” the agency continued. “However, there are highly likely few additional reserves to commit to the sector.”

Those looking for a sign the tide may be turning in Ukraine’s favor pointed to new data that shows they could have more battle-ready tanks than Russia for the first time since the invasion.

Ukraine now controls an estimated 1,500 tanks compared with Russia’s 1,400 — despite Russia beginning the war with 3,400 tanks and Ukraine starting off with just 987 — multiple combined data sources show, Bloomberg reported.

At least 2,082 Russian tanks have been destroyed, damaged, abandoned, or captured since the beginning of the war, according to the open source intelligence group Oryx, which only records losses it can confirm.

Earlier this week, British Defense Chief Admiral Tony Radakin said Russian forces have been greatly diminished in Ukraine.

“Russia has lost nearly half of the combat effectiveness of its army,” Radakin said during a parliamentary hearing.

Radakin went on to describe Putin’s invasion of Ukraine as a “catastrophic failure” and added that Russian forces are now too “weak” to launch a counteroffensive of their own.

The Ukrainian counteroffensive, however, has been effective, according to Radakin.

“Even in the last few weeks, Ukraine has taken back more ground than Russia has taken in the last year,” he said.

With Post Wires