Featured Image Credit: Ukrainian Defense Ministry/Alamy
Topics: Ukraine, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky
Poppy Bilderbeck
Topics: Ukraine, Russia, Vladimir Putin, Volodymyr Zelensky
Drone footage has revealed an attack by the Ukrainian Air Force on Russian-occupied Snake Island.
On the first day (24 February) of Russian president Vladimir Putin's 'special military operation' in Ukraine, Russia's warship, the Moskva missile cruiser, began an assault on Snake Island, a small Ukrainian island in the Black Sea which is home to under 30 people.
While Russia may have taken over the island early on in the invasion, it appears that Ukraine is slowly fighting back to recapture the land, after Ukraine claimed responsibility for the sinking of Moskva.
Footage has also since revealed an airstrike on the island by Ukrainian air forces.
Footage posted to Twitter by Ukraine Weapons Tracker, an account which claims to be 'debunking & tracking usage/capture of materiel in Ukraine,' shows two Ukrainian Su-27 striking 'Russian facilities' on Snake Island.
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It stated the 'remarkable footage' was captured by a 'TB-2 drone'.
"As we can observe, there is serious damage," it said.
Gulf and Iran news director for The Associated Press, Jon Gambrell, also shared a pair of satellite images from Saturday, 7 May, showing the 'aftermath of a suspected Ukrainian drone strike Friday on Russian positions on Snake Island, with thick black smoke rising overhead'.
The second image shows 'what appeared to be a Serna-class landing craft against Snake Island’s northern beach'.
"That corresponds to another Ukrainian military video released showing a drone strike hitting it, engulfing the vessel in flames," he reported.
Analysing the satellite images shared by Gambrell, Kemal, a user who tweets about Defence, Security, and (Naval) Warfare, stated the images 'confirm [Russia's Serna-class landing craft and SA-15 Gauntlet air defense system] were lost between May 6th and 7th'.
Before the attack, Ukrainian Air Force aircraft were spotted flying over the area 'more frequently,' according to Kemal.
According to footage posted by MEP OSINT, an open source intelligence aggregator-analyser for the Middle East, EURASIA and Pacific Asia, on 30 April, a Ukrainian Su-27 was spotted in the skies going over Odessa.
Kemal has collected multiple satellite images into one post, claiming 'between April 30th and May 7th, Ukrainian TB2 UCAVs have hit and destroyed nine Russian ground based A2/AD assets and naval vessels on Snake Island'.
The user resolved: "The Ukrainians have systematically destroyed Russians assets on the Island and have also successfully destroyed reinforcements."
The attack comes after Ukraine claimed to have destroyed a Russian landing ship supplying a TOR anti-aircraft missile system to Snake Island with drones.
Ukrainian official Anton Gerashchenko stated: "Enemy units remaining on Snake Island remain without air cover and will be destroyed and burned out like cockroaches or locusts."
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