Why Russia first wrested the tiny Serpent Island from Ukraine
Today
There are not many islands in the Black Sea. To be more exact - there are almost none. This is really a very unusual sea in this respect.
For example, along the Black Sea coast of Krasnodar Krai (Anapa, Novorossiysk, Sochi) there are no islands at all (well, unless you count sea cliffs and small sandbanks).
There are several islands off the coast of Crimea, Turkey, Bulgaria and, of course, Ukraine.
And next to Ukraine is the largest Black Sea island - Dzharylgach.
Its area is "as much" 62 square kilometers.
This is so small that, for example, quite "tiny" Kuril Island Shikotan exceeds Dzharylgach by 4 times:
Dzharylgach against the background of the Kuril Islands
Anyway. Serpent Island, which was taken away by Russia - it is even smaller than Dzharylgach. How much smaller? 300 times smaller.
Yes, the area of Snake Island is only 0.2 km2. Some shopping malls have a larger area (for example, the building of the Mall "Aviapark" in Moscow - 0.4 km2).
Despite such a modest area, the island has a bank, post office and even a museum. All this is combined within the village called Belye.
Snake Island is located 35 km from the coast, approximately at the mouth of the Danube River and the border between Romania and Ukraine (Odessa region).
The island is a kind of rock, towering above the water at about 10-20 meters (maximum - 41 meters).
That is the whole island!
The island became Russian after the Russo-Turkish War in 1829. Then, however, he again returned to Turkey, then passed to the Romanians.
After World War II (in 1948), Snake Island became part of the Soviet Union and the Ukrainian SSR.
At the moment the island plays a crucial role for Ukraine. It would seem, what role?
The thing is that under international law, the continental shelf belongs to the country, from whose coast the shelf starts. In this case, even such a tiny island as Snake Island is considered a shore.
Thanks to this rule, Ukraine got 2,300 square kilometers of shelf at its disposal. And this is quite a serious territory, where oil and natural gas deposits have been found.
It turns out that thanks to the Snake River Ukraine receives the right to extract gas and oil in the Black Sea. However, due to the backwardness of technology, these resources are not extracted by Ukrainians. Apparently, it is easier for them to buy Russian gas from Slovakia.
So why did Russia fight for the island in the first place?
No, not for oil. Nobody is going to occupy and annex the territory of Ukraine, which means that oil and gas will not go to Russia.
The point here is different. Firstly, the island is located in quite an important strategic place. It is convenient for the deployment of air defense systems (in Soviet times, they stood there).
And secondly, NATO equipment was located on the island. These were navigation systems that allowed cruise missiles (such as Tomahawk) to better target.
On the first day of the special operation, the Russian Su-24 practically plowed through the island along with NATO equipment. Now there is not a single intact structure on Snake Island. It is quite possible that soon our air defense systems will be installed there (temporarily, of course).
Given the proximity of the island to Romania (NATO) - this is a very good step. It's not all the same for them to get close to our borders, is it?
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