Thirteen Guards Told a Warship No on This Island

Snake Island is a wedge of limestone about 300 by 600 meters, thirty-five kilometers off the Danube Delta, home to a lighthouse, a small port, and a chapel.

Ukrainians call it Zmiinyi.

On February 24, 2022, the first day of the Russian assault on Ukraine, thirteen Ukrainian State Border Guard servicemen were the only garrison.

In the late afternoon two Russian warships came over the horizon: the Black Sea Fleet flagship Moskva, a Slava-class missile cruiser, and the patrol ship Vasily Bykov.

The Moskva's bridge opened radio to the island and demanded surrender.

The exchange was recorded on the Ukrainian side.

A Russian officer identifies his ship and warns that if the guards do not surrender they will be fired on.

A Ukrainian voice, later identified as border guard Roman Hrybov, answers with six words that within twenty-four hours would be printed on t-shirts from Lviv to Los Angeles: Russian warship, go f**k yourself.

The naval bombardment began soon after.

The guards fought back with small arms until their ammunition ran out and were taken prisoner.

Ukraine at first believed all thirteen were dead and awarded them Hero of Ukraine posthumously.

On February 28, Russia confirmed they were alive as prisoners of war.

All were returned in a prisoner exchange later in the spring, Hrybov among the first.

The Ukrainian Post issued a stamp of the phrase over a silhouette of the Moskva; a million copies sold out on the day of release.

On April 14, 2022, two R-360 Neptune anti-ship missiles fired from the mainland near Odesa struck the Moskva.

It sank the next morning in a Black Sea storm, the largest warship lost in combat since the Falklands War.

Snake Island itself was taken by Russian marines, held for four months, and abandoned on June 30, 2022, after Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes made the position untenable.

Ukrainian flag was raised there again on July 7.

The chapel and lighthouse are damaged.

The stamp is still in circulation.

Six words from a border guard on a rock in the Black Sea became the country's first war slogan, and the ship they were spoken to lies on the bottom, forty-five nautical miles off the Crimean coast.