--- title: '''Russian warship, go f*** yourself'':how a radio exchange on Snake Island became a billboard and a stamp (2022)' url: https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/snake-island-russian-warship-2022/ description: On 24 February 2022, the first day of the full-scale invasion, a radio exchange between a Russian warship and the garrison of Snake Island (Zmiinyi) was section: Case studies --- ![Illustration: a redacted Cold War intelligence-dossier collage centred on a world map of influence operations, with the U.S. Capitol among the evidence.](https://propagandaarchive.org/static/generated/hero-home.jpg) Case studies # 'Russian warship, go f*** yourself':how a radio exchange on Snake Island became a billboard and a stamp (2022) 1. [Home](https://propagandaarchive.org/) 2. [Case studies](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/) 3. 'Russian warship, go f*** yourself': how a radio exchange on Snake - **When:** February 24, 2022 - **Actor:** Government of Ukraine (President's Office, border guard service, Ukrposhta) and unnamed advertisers and activists in Ukraine - **Target:** Ukrainian citizens and international audiences during the first weeks of the full-scale invasion - **Source:** Identified Openly sourced: the speaker is who they say they are - **Confidence:** **documented** Primary documents, court records, official disclosures - **Techniques:** [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/) [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/) On this page **In one line:** On 24 February 2022, the first day of the full-scale invasion, a radio exchange between a Russian warship and the garrison of Snake Island (Zmiinyi) was reported by Ukrainian officials; the phrase the garrison used in reply was on billboards within two weeks and on a state postage stamp on 12 April 2022, a sequence in which a battlefield moment was turned into a national emblem while the first account of the garrison's fate turned out to be wrong. ## What happened - **24 February 2022.** Ukrainian officials report that a Russian warship called on the island's garrison to surrender and that the defenders refused with a profane phrase. The phrase is shortened in print to "Russian warship, go...". - **Late February 2022.** Ukrainian officials first say the garrison died. The soldiers are later reported alive as prisoners and are released in an exchange in March 2022 (catalogue entry for the Ternopil billboard). - **9 March 2022.** A billboard in Ternopil carries the phrase in blue letters on white over a yellow bar, with the expletive asterisked, beside a cosmetics advertisement. The sponsor is not shown. The photograph is held as [the Ternopil billboard](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/russkiy-korabl-idi-nakh-ternopil-billboard-2022.jpg). - **12 April 2022.** Ukraine's postal service, Ukrposhta, issues a stamp of a soldier in body armour with his back to the viewer, raising a middle finger at a grey warship. It shows the state trident, the name of the country and the year. It is a sheet of six at denomination W, printed in a run of 500,000, with an F-denomination variant ([the stamp](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/ukrposhta-russian-warship-stamp-2022.jpg)). - **After April 2022.** The phrase spreads as graffiti, merchandise and billboards in Ukraine and abroad (catalogue entry). ## How it works - [Name-calling](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/name-calling/): the billboard reduces the whole target to "Russian ship" and dismisses it with invective and no claim or reason. The entry scores the label-plus-command form. - [Transfer](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/transfer/): on the stamp, the trident, the country name, the year and a face value turn a front-line moment into a state postal issue, so that the prestige of the island episode is carried onto the issuing state. - **A first account that did not hold.** The announcement that the garrison had died was corrected within weeks. The phrase stayed in use after the correction, which is why the case sits between a verified event (the exchange was reported by officials) and a symbol. ## Positions on the record - **What is documented.** The date of the exchange as reported by Ukrainian officials; the billboard of 9 March 2022; the stamp of 12 April 2022 and its run; the prisoners' release in March 2022. - **What the archive has not traced.** The recording itself, and who paid for the Ternopil billboard. - **Not ruled on here.** The conduct of the war. The page records how a phrase was used and by whom. ## Same-method test The test is whether a government or its agents turn a wartime episode into a symbol and then use official channels to fix it. The Russian Ministry of Defence did the same with a numbered poster series in 2022, among them [Heroes of Z](https://propagandaarchive.org/collection/images/geroi-z-nashe-delo-pravoe-mod-poster-2022.jpg), which reuses a sentence from Molotov's address of 22 June 1941. The two differ in form, issuer and scale: a postage stamp and private billboards on one side, a ministry's own series on the other. Both appear on [Ukraine war propaganda](https://propagandaarchive.org/ukraine-war-propaganda/). ## How to spot it - Check the date of the first report against later corrections. - Ask whether a symbol is being attached to an issuing body, such as a state's trident on a stamp. - Note when the sponsor of a public display is not shown. ## Sources - Catalogue entries: Ternopil billboard (photograph by Mykola Vasylechko, CC BY-SA 4.0) and Ukrposhta stamp. ## Related guides and pages - [Russian propaganda from the Empire to the present](https://propagandaarchive.org/russian-propaganda/) - [Fake news: what it means, where it came from, documented cases](https://propagandaarchive.org/types-of-propaganda/fake-news/) - [Disinformation: origin of the word and documented cases](https://propagandaarchive.org/types-of-propaganda/disinformation/) - [Russian Federation under Vladimir Putin](https://propagandaarchive.org/regimes/putin-government/) - [The Crimea referendum of 16 March 2014: a two-option ballot, a tricolour campaign and a counting infographic](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/crimea-referendum-campaign-2014/) - [EUvsDisinfo and the EEAS East StratCom Task Force](https://propagandaarchive.org/case-studies/euvsdisinfo-east-stratcom/) - [Firehosing](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/firehosing/) - [Whataboutism](https://propagandaarchive.org/techniques/whataboutism/)