"Sea. Battle for Zmiiny Island": Documentary about deoccupation strategically important for security in Black Sea. VIDEO
The film "Sea. The Battle for Zmiiny Island" is the second work from Artem Shevchenko’s documentary series "Military intelligence of Ukraine: on the sea, in the sky, on the ground."
This is reported by Censor.NET.
On April 13, 2022, the sinking of the flagship of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy, the cruiser "Moskva" by two anti-ship missiles of the new Ukrainian mobile coastal complex RK-360MC Neptune, was key to the liberation of the island.
"This was a very important operation for Ukraine because without taking, or rather returning control over Zmiin Island, it was impossible, I want to emphasize once again, it was absolutely impossible to carry out any shipping from the ports of Ukraine. If you look at the chronology, you will see that as soon as we freed the Zmiiny Island, shipping resumed very soon. Therefore, without control of this island, the Russians would simply destroy us economically," said the head of the Defence Intelligence Kyrylo Budanov.
In the film, for the first time, exclusive footage of the flight, landing from helicopters and combat operations on the island, which were conducted on May 8, 2022, by the special-purpose groups of the Defence Intelligence and "Alpha" of the SSU, was shown for the first time. Officers directly involved in this complex operation told about it.
"The sinking of the missile cruiser "Moskva", the destruction of several landing ships, enemy boats, in general, the disruption of the logistics of Zmiiny Island - all this subsequently affected the liberation of this island from the invaders. This applies to the naval component. As for the air component, these are our famous Bayraktars of the naval aviation, which worked from the first days of the war, starting from the Kherson region, and for the first time Ukraine used them in combat for naval purposes," said in the film the Commander of the Naval Forces of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Vice Admiral Oleksii Neizhpapa.
The commander of the helicopter crew of the army aviation of the Ground Forces of the AFU, Hero of Ukraine Yevhen Solovyov noted: "When we flew to Zmiiny, it was 37 km from the nearest point, but it was an open water surface. The helicopter, provided there is no wind, can be heard 8 kilometers away 10. That is, we will be heard in advance and we will be seen in advance. We will be seen and heard at a greater distance, before we can carry out a fire attack on the island. And this was the most difficult, because the eight lower helicopters are just like in the palm of your hand."
According to the commander of the special purpose unit of the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense with the call sign "Shaman", the enemy did not expect a landing.
"There were several attempts to land and the enemy plus or minus understood that we wanted to do it, but the very landing and attack - it was a real shock for the enemy, it's not that they didn't expect it, we also killed them decently there. ...The most difficult thing is to make a decision. I call it "making a deal with myself". If you have already agreed with yourself on various types of arguments... At that time there were a minimum of arguments. Everyone understood that this was a difficult operation, but no one could say no, because there was no one who would say no. And that's it," the defender recalls.
In the film, the commander of one of the special purpose assault groups of the Defence Intelligence of the Ministry of Defense with the call sign "Skin" told about the desperate resistance of the Russian occupiers on the island to the Ukrainian soldiers: "There were a lot of buildings. They had nowhere to hide, they moved very quickly, they did not sit in one place, they constantly changed positions, they were preparing for defense. This was their island, which they had been to more than once. I'll tell you, it was quite an epic battle... The island can be captured if you have an advantage in firepower, which it showed later. So? It was simply wiped off the face of the earth, and then they drove a bunch of people there, turntables, everything else - they were simply multiplied by zero and that was it. And they made a gesture of goodwill, let's say so."
All eight helicopters that flew to Zmiiny, fired rockets, and landed groups of special forces on the island returned to the bases unharmed. But near the shores of Odesa, at the mouth of the Danube, a Russian Su-30 fighter jet shot down a Mi-14 naval helicopter, in which, in particular, the deputy commander of the AFU, Colonel Ihor Bedzay, was killed.
