Ukraine video shows fighting over gas platforms near Snake Island

Newly released footage appears to show Ukrainian forces battling Russian troops near a strategic Black Sea outpost west of Crimea that has long been a target of Kiev and Moscow.

The clip released by Ukraine’s State Border Guard on Saturday purports to show how its fighters – together with Kiev’s military intelligence service – are wresting gas production platforms around the Black Sea outpost of Snake Island from Russian control.

Moscow’s soldiers had targeted Snake Island, also known as Zmiinyi Island, in the first hours of the invasion effort that began on February 24, 2022.

It is near Romania in the northwest of the Black Sea, where Ukraine has managed to threaten the Russian naval fleet, which operates partly from its Sevastopol base in Crimea on the western edge of the annexed peninsula.

The video appears to show a nighttime operation in which Ukrainian soldiers travel by boat before firing into the darkness. What appears to be a gas production platform then ignites, before the video shows a section of the burning platform in daylight.

Newsweek could not independently verify the video and it is not clear when it was filmed. Ukrainian outlet Ukrainska Pravda reported that the footage was filmed in the summer of 2024, but did not elaborate.

The Ukrainian Border Service was contacted by email for further comment.

Ukraine recaptured the outpost in June 2022 after Russia said it would withdraw from the island as a “goodwill” gesture.

Kyrylo Budanov, the head of Ukraine’s military intelligence agency GUR, has previously described Snake Island as strategically important for civil, commercial and military reasons. The tiny island is crucial to shipping routes in and out of the Black Sea and lies roughly south of the Ukrainian port city of Odessa.

“With tremendous efforts, we have captured and taken control of some of these strategically important facilities that serve as our sea fortresses,” the Border Patrol said in a brief caption posted on social media Saturday. “Their retention allows us to control a significant portion of the water area and strengthen our defenses.”

In June 2024, Ukraine’s security service SBU released bodycam footage of what it called a “unique and extremely important operation” consisting of “multiple stages” on Snake Island two years earlier.

Russia captured a number of gas drilling platforms from Ukraine shortly after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. Kyiv announced in September 2023 that it had retaken the platforms, also known as Boyko Towers.

In August 2023, the British government described the oil and gas towers in the northwestern Black Sea, similar to those on Snake Island, as military outposts that provide helipads and bases for long-range missile systems.