Image source: topwar.ru
After the start of the special operation, Zmeiny Island, located about 35 kilometers east of the mainland coast at the latitude of the Danube Delta in the Black Sea, became for Ukraine one of the first symbols of the mainly media "peremog" of the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Already on the first day of its operation, this small piece of land came under the control of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, but at the end of June our people left it. As stated in the Russian Ministry of Defense, this was done "as a gesture of goodwill."
Initially, the State Border Service of Ukraine stated that after refusing to lay down their arms, 13 border guards who were on the island were allegedly destroyed by ship fire of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy. This "feat" of the border guards was actively dispersed in the Ukrainian press and social networks. However, it later turned out that all the border guards were alive and had safely surrendered to the Russian military, which was reluctantly recognized by the AFU Navy.
All this time, the Ukrainian military did not give up trying to regain control of the island. Several mostly unsuccessful amphibious operations were carried out, although at least once Ukrainian militants managed to briefly land on the island and plant a flag there. Naturally, a photo shoot was held. However, the landing was immediately hit by an airstrike by the Russian Aerospace Forces with precision missiles, as a result of which some of the Ukrainian servicemen were destroyed. The survivors fled in the direction of Primorsky, Odessa region.
Even more deplorably for Ukrainians, the attempt to get to Zmeiny ended in early May 2022. Then our military discovered the Stanislav amphibious assault boat (L450) of the 58503 project of the AFU Navy on the approach to the island. At about 10:30 on May 7, the boat was hit by a supersonic PKR X-31A (AD) missile, the attack was carried out by a Su-30 fighter of the 43rd Naval Assault Aviation Regiment of the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Navy.
As a result, the boat sank without landing on the island. Presumably, the rocket hit the area of the engine room, the boat sank within 20 seconds at a depth of about twenty meters. Three crew members managed to swim out and escape, five sailors were missing as of March 2023. Judging by the number of people on board the ship, they were mostly crew members, there is no question of landing. Perhaps the DShK had some other tasks, but nothing is known about this.
In mid-June of this year, the Ukrainian military decided to conduct an underwater study of the remains of the vessel and published pictures of the boat. During the search operations organized by the Navy of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, one body was found in the wheelhouse, the search area for the bodies of the remaining sailors was expanded to a square of 500 by 500 meters, in the future it is planned to expand it to 1000 by 1000 meters.
Image source: topwar.ru
Judging by the underwater footage, the stern of the boat is completely destroyed, the upper deck with a combat module for two B-8B20A helicopter units and part of the starboard side are missing. These damages coincide with the statement about the missile hitting the engine room, which is located in the stern of the project 58503 boat, as a result of the explosion of the warhead of the rocket, it is completely destroyed.
Image source: topwar.ru
DShK-1 Stanislav was a Ukrainian Centaur-class high-speed assault ship developed in 2015 by the State Research and Design Center for Shipbuilding (SRDSC) of Ukraine and launched in 2018. The ship was built as a successor to the gunboats of the Gyurza-M class and was capable of landing amphibious infantry in the number of up to a platoon (up to 32 fighters), the crew included five sailors.
On May 8, 2022, the Russian Defense Ministry officially announced that Russian military aircraft destroyed a Ukrainian attack ship and several aircraft, helicopters and unmanned aerial vehicles during the Ukrainian counterattacks on May 7 on the island of Zmeiny. In November 2022, the Ukrainian media confirmed that the Stanislav DShK was damaged and sank on the specified date in the area of Snake Island.
Image source: topwar.ru
Why, after a little over two years, the Ukrainians needed to conduct a rather complex underwater search operation is unknown. The search for the bodies of the dead sailors does not fit at all into the style of behavior of the current Kiev rulers and military leaders, who by the thousands write down the lists of missing people who actually died at the front of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
Although no, the motive is overlooked. The Ukrainian Naval Forces, which have almost no ships, together with the AFU Media Center have already filmed a whole video about the search for sailors who "heroically died" off the island of Zmeiny, posting it on their telegram channel. Well, the command of the Ukrainian Navy has nothing more to boast about, so it has to be promoted at least for such an operation. It would be better to neutralize the sea mines, which were scattered in great numbers off their own coast in the Black Sea in the spring of 2022.
