Originally Published: 30 JUN 22 09:35 ET

Updated: 30 JUN 22 10:08 ET

By Olga Voitovych, Anna Chernova and Tim Lister, CNN

(CNN) -- Russian troops have left Snake Island in the Black Sea, the Ukrainian Armed Forces said Thursday, after they carried out what they said was a "successful" operation.

The small but strategic territory was the scene of one of the opening salvos of the war in Ukraine, with demands from a Russian warship calling for the Ukrainian defenders to surrender, who boldly replied with "Russian warship, go f* yourself."

Known as Zmiinyi Ostriv in Ukrainian, Snake Island lies around 30 miles (48 kilometers) off the coast of Ukraine and is close to the sea lanes leading to the Bosphorus and Mediterranean.

Moscow had never laid claim to Snake Island before this year, and it's a long way from any part of the Russian mainland. It's over 180 miles from Crimea, annexed by Russia in 2014, and so there is no geographical or historical basis for Russia to claim it now.

On Monday, the Ukrainian military said it hit a second missile system on the island, as well as multiple Russian personnel in their efforts to keep them at bay.

In a short post on Telegram on Thursday the Operation Command South of the Ukrainian Armed Forces said that "the enemy hastily evacuated the remnants of the garrison in two speedboats and probably left the island."

Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the President of Ukraine, said in a Telegram post that Ukraine's armed forces had "conducted a remarkable operation."

The Commander-in-Chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Valeriy Zaluzhniy, later said on Telegram that the "occupiers" had left after being "unable to withstand the fire of our artillery, missile and air strikes."

He paid tribute to those behind the manufacturing of the Ukrainian self-propelled howitzer 'Bodogan,' saying it "played an important role in the liberation of the island," and also said "Thanks to foreign partners for the provided means of destruction."

Zaluzhniy also thanked the Ukrainian Armed Forces from the Odesa region, which Snake Island is a part of, "who took the maximum measures to liberate a strategically important part of our territory."

However, Russia gave a slightly different narrative of the events on the island.

Russian army spokesman Igor Konashenkov said at a briefing that its forces left the island "as a gesture of goodwill."

He added that "the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation finished fulfilling the assigned tasks in Snake Island and withdrew the garrison that had been operating there."

Konashenkov intimated that the removal of Russian troops should allow an easing for the passage of grain, "this solution will prevent Kyiv from speculating on an impending grocery crisis citing the inability to export grain due to total control of the northwestern part of the Black Sea by Russia."

But the Ukrainian government rejected Russia's version of events, with Yermak denouncing the explanation.

"In Russia, they say about the alleged withdrawal of troops from Snake Island and present it as a 'gesture of goodwill.' Like, Russia does not interfere with humanitarian corridors for the export of Ukrainian grain. But all this is a complete fake," Yermak said on his official Telegram channel.

"First, the Ukrainian Armed Forces have knocked the Russians out of Snake Island," Yermak added. "Secondly, the Russians are shelling warehouses with our grain. In the morning, a warehouse in the Dnipropetrovsk region was fired upon."

Snake Island is part of the Odesa region, through which much of Ukraine's agricultural wealth travels to global markets. In normal times, Ukraine would export around three-quarters of the grain it produces. According to data from the European Commission, about 90% of these exports were shipped by sea, from Ukraine's Black Sea ports.

Ukraine's defense intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said in May that whoever holds Snake Island controls "the surface and to some extent the air situation in southern Ukraine."

"Whoever controls the island can block the movement of civilian vessels in all directions to the south of Ukraine at any time," Budanov added.

Last year, President Volodymyr Zelensky flew to Snake Island, where there are no voters but some sheep, to emphasize that it mattered. "This island, like the rest of our territory, is Ukrainian land, and we will defend it with all our might," he said.