SYLLABUS SECTION: GS II (INTERNATIONAL ISSUES)

WHY IN THE NEWS?

Ukraine has said it has caused “significant losses” to the Russian military in airstrikes on Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake Island, in the Black Sea.

MORE DETAILS:

• Zmiinyi Island, also known as Snake or Serpent Island, is located 35 km from the coast in the Black Sea, to the east of the mouth of the Danube River and roughly southwest of the port city of Odessa.
• The island, which has been known since ancient times and is mark on the map by the tiny village of Bile that is locates on it, belongs to Ukraine. It is a small piece of rock in ‘X shape’.
• Bile, a rural settlement, was establish in 2007 with the objective of consolidating the island’s status as an inhabit place.
• From 2004 until 2009, the island was at the center of a boundary dispute between Romania and Ukraine. The International Court of Justice, in 2009, delineate the territorial limits of the continental shelf around Snake Island and gave Romania over 80 percent of the dispute island.
• Around 100 inhabitants lived on this island, most of them being technical personnel and frontier guards along with their families.
• The island has been demilitarize and was under development.

BLACK SEA:

• Black Sea is a marginal sea of the Atlantic Ocean.
• It is locate between Eastern Europe and Western Asia
• Border countries: Black Sea is border by six countries- Romania and Bulgaria to the west; Ukraine, Russia and Georgia to the north and east and Turkey to the south.

CONNECTING WATER BODIES:

• The Black Sea ultimately drains into the Mediterranean Sea via the Turkish Straits and the Aegean Sea.
• The Bosporus Strait connects it to the small Sea of Marmara which in turn is connects to the Aegean Sea via the Strait of the Dardanelles.
• To the north, the Black Sea is connected to the Sea of Azov by the Kerch Strait.

Read more: UPSC CURRENT AFFAIRS

SOURCE: INDIAN EXPRESS