While reacting to the hositing of a Ukrainian flag over snake island, a Russian aircraft has bombarded the Island some hours after the flag was raised.
Both the Russian Defense Ministry and the Ukrainian armed forces confirmed the attack.
“At dawn, during an aerial overflight and reconnaissance of Zmiiny (Snake) island, it was attacked by 2 air-launched missiles. The dock was significantly damaged,” the Ukrainian military said.
The Russian Ministry of Defense stated, according to the state news agency RIA Novosti: “Against the backdrop of military failures and a massive retreat of Ukrainian troops in the Donbas, the Kyiv regime made an attempt to symbolically deliver the flag to Snake Island tonight.
“A Russian Air Forces aircraft immediately launched a missile attack on the island, as a result, some of the Ukrainian military personnel were destroyed, the rest fled.”
The Ukrainian military made no mention of casualties.
Serhii Bratchuk, spokesman of the Odessa military administration, said earlier that the Ukrainian flag had been installed on Snake Island.
Russian forces left the island last week after occupying it since the beginning of the invasion in February. Russian positions had sustained repeated strikes by Ukrainian forces in the previous weeks.
Missiles had also rained down on Ukraine early Sunday morning killing many civilians and wounding dozens in built-up areas, a development which has prompted President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to accuse Russia of state ‘terror’.
Africa Daily News, New York reports that strikes on a southern resort town had left no fewer than 21 dead and dozens wounded after missiles slammed into flats and a recreation centre in Sergiyvka, 80 kilometres (50 miles) south of Black Sea port Odessa.
Rockets hit residential properties in Solviansk in the heart of the embattled Donbas region, killing a woman in her garden and wounding her husband, a neighbour told reporters late Saturday, describing debris showered across the neighbourhood.
The witness said the strike on Friday was thought to use cluster munitions which spread over a large area before exploding, striking buildings and people who were outdoors.
