A group of Ukrainian soldiers who garnered worldwide attention after forcefully telling off a Russian warship may be alive, contrary to earlier reports, according to Ukrainian officials.
The soldiers on Snake Island, a small island in the Black Sea, rose to fame last week after a Russian warship asked them to surrender or be bombed, according to a tweet from the Ukrainian Embassy in Georgia.
In audio of the incident, a Russian officer can be heard telling the soldiers to lay down arms to "avoid bloodshed and unjustified deaths" before one of the Ukrainian soldiers responded with an expletive.
Ukrainian officials said last week that all 13 of the soldiers were killed. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said during a news briefing that the soldiers would be “posthumously awarded the title of Hero of Ukraine."
But the State Border Guard Service of Ukraine said in a statement that the soldiers may have been captured by Russian forces and are still alive.
"We sincerely hope that the boys will return home as soon as possible, and the information received at the time of the attack on the death will not be confirmed," the statement says, translated in multiple reports.
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The statement added that Russian media reports say the captured soldiers were sent to Sevastopol, a city in Crimea.
The soldiers' survival was also confirmed by the Ukrainian Navy.
Ukrainian and Russian delegations were meeting at the Belarusian border on Monday for the first direct talks since Russia invaded Ukraine last week. The talks come after Russian President Vladimir Putin put nuclear forces on increased alert on Sunday.
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