The 13 Ukrainian soldiers believed to have died on Snake Island in the Black Sea last week after refusing to surrender to a Russian warship are still alive.

The Russian army took them prisoner of war. The Ukrainian Navy reports this.

The 13 border guards on Zmiinyi Island (Snake Island), a small Black Sea island near the Romanian border, were cheered on social media last Thursday after they replied in no uncertain terms to a Russian warship demanding their surrender: Russian warship, kiss our ******”.

The Russian warship then started a bombardment of the island, after which the Ukrainian army lost all contact with the 13 soldiers. According to initial reports, they had all been killed in those attacks, and Ukrainian President Vlodymyr Zelensky promised that they would be decorated posthumously.

But the Ukrainian navy now confirms that the 13 survived the attack. The Russian navy took them prisoner of war. We demand from Russia the immediate release of the illegally imprisoned citizens of Ukraine.