The Ukrainian Navy says that 13 border guards believed killed last week while defending a strategic Black Sea island after giving a defiant final message to the invading Russian military, are actually alive.
“Our brothers-in-arms are alive and well,” the navy says in a Facebook post, according to the BBC.
The border guards and marines on the island “twice bravely repulsed the attacks of the Russian occupiers,” but were unable to continue fighting because they ran out of ammunition, it says.
Ukraine initially said the 13 guards stationed at the remote Zmiinyi, or Snake Island — some 40 kilometers (25 miles) from the border of Romania — were killed and would posthumously be awarded Hero of Ukraine medals.
Zmiinyi Island, or Snake Island in the Black Sea, on August 26, 2014 (Courtesy/Wikimedia Commons/Мазурок И. Е.)
The men became national heroes after they were recorded being informed by a Russian warship that they should surrender or “be hit with a bomb strike.”
“Russian warship, go fuck yourself,” a Ukrainian border guard replied.
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