The language of the sea has always been salty, especially in times of crisis. It should therefore be no surprise that a particularly coarse phrase has come to epitomize Ukraine’s defiance against the Russian occupying forces. On 24 February 2022, the first day of the invasion, two Russian warships approached Snake Island, a small island in the Black Sea. This island holds symbolic as well as strategic importance as in August 2021, as Russian forces were amassing on the Ukrainian border, president Volodymyr Zelenskyy held a press conference there in which he said, ‘This island, like the rest of our territory, is Ukrainian land, and we will defend it with all our might.’
Taking the island on the first day of the invasion was therefore a statement of intent from the Russian forces. At 18:00 the cruiser Moskva and patrol ship Vasily Bykov bombarded the island and then sent out the radio message, ‘This is a Russian warship. I propose you lay down arms immediately and surrender to avoid bloodshed and unnecessary deaths. Otherwise, you will be bombed.’ The response from Roman Gribov, the Ukrainian radio operator, was immediate and unequivocal, ‘Russian warship, go fuck yourself’.
The phrase was quickly and cleverly weaponized as a way of showing contempt for the Russian forces and of flaunting the audacity of the Ukrainians. The obscenity is clearly part of its appeal and it has been embraced in official circles. Gribov was awarded a medal for his efforts and his phrase was selected for a commemorative stamp by the Ukrainian post office. The defiant battle cry was quickly taken up by others. When a Georgian bunker ship was approached by a Russian vessel for fuel it responded, ‘Russian ship, go fuck yourself’. Before sanctions had been imposed on Russian commerce, protesters in Orkney, in response to news that a Russian tanker was about to dock, used the rallying cry, ‘Russian tanker, go fuck yourself’. It is a wonderfully emotive phrase that keeps on giving; simple, shocking, and effective.
History can also be an equally powerful weapon, or casualty, of war, something that Ukraine knows only too well. When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 its coastal waters in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov no longer came under the protection of the 2001 UNESCO Convention on the Protection of the Underwater Heritage as Russia is not a signatory. Prior to the current conflict Ukraine had brought a claim against Russia under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea to the Permanent Court of Arbitration. Amid the wider territorial claims, Ukraine accused Russia of disturbing, destroying, and removing its underwater cultural heritage as a way of erasing any historical Ukrainian presence in Crimea. Russia naturally asserted that it could do whatever it wanted with its ‘own’ heritage. The consequences for maritime heritage, should Russia succeed in taking more territory along the Black Sea coast, would appear to be worrying.