Ukraine Operational Command South/Handout by way of Reuters
Russian forces controlling Ukraine’s Snake Island have been pressured to flee on pace boats after the Ukrainian navy launched a brutal offensive to take it again.
“Operational Command South confirms the Russian occupiers have left Snake Island. They couldn’t stand the climate, the bottom was burning below their toes, the ocean was boiling, the air was too scorching. P.S. Russian warships go f*ck yourselves!” Ukraine’s Protection Ministry tweeted early Thursday.
The announcement got here after Operational Command South reported that Russian troops had “hurriedly” evacuated from the island on two pace boats in a single day. Footage of the island, a strategic outpost within the Black Sea, confirmed hearth and black plumes of smoke after the Ukrainian offensive.
Russia’s Protection Ministry, naturally, tried to spin the retreat as a win. In a Thursday briefing, a spokesperson acknowledged the withdrawal however made no point out of the Ukrainian offensive, as a substitute claiming Putin’s troops had fulfilled their mission after which, as a goodwill gesture, left in order that Moscow may show to the world that Russia “shouldn't be interfering with the efforts of the UN to arrange a humanitarian hall for the export of agricultural merchandise from the territory of Ukraine.”
The far-fetched declare seems to be a part of a sample of Russian protection officers taking the Russian public (and the world at massive) for idiots because the very begin of the full-scale Feb. 24 invasion.
In accordance with an exhaustive investigation printed Thursday by the investigative impartial media outlet Mission Media, Russia’s Protection Ministry has been fabricating its “wins” in Ukraine because the very starting, repeatedly boasting about seizing management of the identical cities and citing information pulled “from nowhere.”
Researchers with the media outlet studied all 196 briefings given by Russian Protection Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov since Feb. 24 and located “blatant and ridiculous inconsistencies in figures and geography,” the outlet mentioned Thursday.
Among the many most evident lies, Konashenkov repeatedly boasted of Russian forces seizing the identical villages time and again, apparently relying on the Russian public not with the ability to bear in mind the names of obscure Ukrainian areas, in keeping with the report. One village, Kreminna, within the Luhansk area, was proclaimed as a victory for Russia on no less than 4 totally different events all through March and April.
Town of Lyman (often known as Krasny Lyman) was additionally mentioned to have been taken over by Russian forces on March 2, however then, in keeping with the report, subsequent briefings by the Russian Protection Ministry prompt Ukrainian troops and weapons depots had by some means “magically appeared” within the territory that was supposedly already below Russian management. Three months after first declaring that Russian forces managed the town, Konashenkov repeated the declare once more on Could 28.
The identical was performed with no less than 25 different villages and cities, the report notes.
The mendacity started even on the primary day of the full-fledged warfare, in keeping with Mission, with Konashenkov reporting that Russian forces worn out 74 Ukrainian navy websites–though the checklist of amenities he offered added as much as solely 37.
Researchers say in addition they found Russia’s claims concerning the quantity of Ukrainian gear destroyed was actually unattainable, because the Protection Ministry mentioned it had destroyed extra gear than Ukraine even possesses, even taking into consideration Western provides.
Noting that the Protection Ministry sought to “create an phantasm of success” from the beginning of the warfare, the investigation discovered that “Konashenkov’s stories grew to become extra fantastical with daily. Because of this, when ‘Mission’ summed up all of the statements of the press secretary concerning the Ukrainian navy’s losses, the outcome was, to place it mildly, unusual.”