[9] About 100 inhabitants live on the island's only settlement, Bile, mostly frontier guard servicemen with their families and technical personnel.

In 2003, an initiative of the Odesa I. I. Mechnikov National University established the Ostriv Zmiinyi marine research station every year, at which scientists and students from the university conduct research on local fauna, flora, geology, meteorology, atmospheric chemistry, and hydrobiology.

In accordance with a 1997 Treaty between Romania and Ukraine, the Ukrainian authorities withdrew an army radio division, demolished a military radar, and transferred all other infrastructure to civilians.

Eventually, the Romania-Ukraine international relationships soured (see "Maritime delimitation" section) when Romania tried to assert that the island is no more than a rock in the sea.

In February 2007, the Verkhovna Rada approved establishing a rural settlement as part of Vylkove city which is located some distance away at the mouth of the Danube.

The island also has civil infrastructure such as the marine research station, a post office, a bank (branch of the Ukrainian bank "Aval"), the first-aid station, a satellite television provider, a phone network, a cell phone tower, and an Internet link.

[11] Since 2009 the development of the island was suspended due to financing which caused a great degree of concern of local authorities asking for more funding from the state.

The lighthouse was heavily damaged during World War II by Soviet aviation and German retreating forces.

In August 2004, the lighthouse was equipped with a radio beacon "Yantar-2M-200", which provides differential correction signal for global navigation satellite systems GPS and GLONASS.

[19] He also added that people said that Achilles and Patroclus appeared in front of them as hallucinations or in their dreams while they were approaching the coast of the island or sailing a short distance from it.

[22] The uninhabited isle Achilleis ("of Achilles") was the major sanctuary of the hero, where "seabirds dipped their wings in water to sweep the temples clean", according to Constantine D. Kyriazis.

[24] According to a surviving epitome of the lost Trojan War epic of Arctinus of Miletus, the remains of Achilles and Patroclus were brought to this island by Thetis, to be put in a sanctuary, furnishing the aition, or founding myth of the Hellenic cult of Achilles centred here.

[15] The oracle of Delphi sent Leonymus (other writers called him Autoleon[25]) to the Island, telling him that there Ajax the Great would appear to him and cure his wound.

[29] Ruins believed to be of a square temple dedicated to Achilles, 30 meters to a side, were discovered by the Russian naval Captain N. D. Kritzkii in 1823, but the subsequent construction of a lighthouse on the site obliterated all trace of it.

As part of the Romanian alliance with Russia, the Russians operated a wireless station on the island, which was destroyed on 25 June 1917 when it was bombarded by the Ottoman cruiser Midilli (built as SMS Breslau of the German Navy).

[citation needed] The island, under Romanian control during the Second World War, was the location of a radio station used by the Axis forces, which turned it into a target for the Soviet Black Sea Fleet.

During the brief bombardment, she struck the radio station, barracks and lighthouse on the island, but failed to inflict significant losses.

[50] On 25 August 1943, two Romanian motorboats spotted a Soviet submarine near the island and attacked her with depth charges, but it managed to escape.

[52][53] The Paris Peace Treaties of 1947 between the protagonists of World War II stipulated that Romania cede Northern Bukovina, the Hertsa region, Budjak, and Bessarabia to the Soviet Union, but made no mention of the mouths of the Danube and Snake Island.

The same year, in 1948, during the Cold War, a Soviet radar post was built on the isle (for both naval and anti-aircraft purposes).

The Soviet Union's possession of Snake Island was confirmed in the Treaty between the Government of the People's Republic of Romania and the Government of the Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics on the Romanian-Soviet State Border Regime, Collaboration and Mutual Assistance on Border Matters, signed in Bucharest on 27 February 1961.

In 2008, twelve Ukrainian border guards died when their helicopter flying from Odesa to Snake Island crashed, killing all but one on board.

[54][55] Militarily, Snake Island, 35 kilometres (22 mi) from the coast of Ukraine, is within the range of missile, artillery, and drone strikes from the shore, and exposed to attacks from all directions from air and sea, making any garrison "sitting ducks".

[65] On 29 March 2022, the Defence Ministry of Ukraine posted on Twitter that the speaker of the phrase had been freed from captivity and given a medal for bravery.

[56][69] Ukrainian military sources said they carried out attacks on both the island proper and on any Russian vessels bringing troops and weapons to it.

[70] In late June 2022, Russian forces withdrew from the island[69] in what the BBC referred to as both a symbolic and strategic victory for Ukraine.

[75] The status of Snake Island was important for delimitation of continental shelf and exclusive economic zones between Romania and Ukraine.

[76] On 16 September 2004, the Romanian side brought a case against Ukraine to the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in a dispute concerning the maritime boundary between the two States in the Black Sea.

The Court invoked the disproportionality test in adjudicating the dispute, noting that the ICJ, "as its jurisprudence has indicated, it may on occasion decide not to take account of very small islands or decide not to give them their full potential entitlement to maritime zones, should such an approach have a disproportionate effect on the delimitation line under consideration" and owing to a previous agreement between Ukraine and Romania, the island "should have no effect on the delimitation in this case, other than that stemming from the role of the 12-nautical-mile arc of its territorial sea" previously agreed between the parties.