The 'Go F**k yourself' Gang: Immortalized Snake Island defenders may still be ALIVE!
In a surprising turn of events, Ukrainian officials have said that 13 border guards who were reportedly killed while defending a small Black Sea island may still be alive. The guards were reportedly massacred as they tried to defend the island after telling a Russian warship to 'Go f**k yourself'.
“We [have a] strong belief that all Ukrainian defenders of Zmiinyi (Snake) Island may be alive,” the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine (SBGSU) said in a statement on Saturday, February 26. “Preliminary information that border guards may be dead came before the defenders lost contact.”
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According to earlier reports, the group of soldiers refused to surrender their post on Snake Island. Following the incident, Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine confirmed that the soldiers had been killed.
However, the border agency has now claimed that Russian media reported that the soldiers were captured and sent to Sevastopol on the Russian-controlled Crimea Peninsula. SBGSU has now said that this information is unconfirmed, giving rise to the hope that they may be alive.
According to CNN, Russian Maj-Gen Igor Konashenkov said in a statement that 82 Ukrainian servicemen “laid down their arms and voluntarily surrendered to a unit of the Russian Armed Forces". “After receiving information about their possible location, the DPSU together with the Armed Forces of Ukraine are conducting work on identifying our soldiers,” officials said, adding, "We sincerely hope that the boys will return home as soon as possible."
Hours after Russia launched its invasion into Ukraine, two Russian ships approached the Ukrainian island on Thursday, February 24, identifying themselves to the guards as a "Russian warship". They demanded that the Ukrainians surrender and warned the guards that if they don't do as commanded, they would open fire.
According to the audio of the exchange, the Russians told the border guards, "This is a Russian warship, I repeat. I suggest you surrender your weapons and capitulate otherwise I will open fire. Do you copy?” A Ukrainian guard replied, "Russian warship, go f*** yourself." The Russians then reportedly opened fire on the island. All communications with the guards were soon lost, reports claimed.
The island, the infrastructure of which was destroyed, has been reportedly taken over by the Russian military now. Zelenskyy said in a statement that the border guards will be given a posthumous Hero of Ukraine medal for defending the island "heroically". “On our Zmiinyi Island, defending it to the last, all the border guards died heroically,” Zelenskyy said. “But [they] did not give up.”
