Best Snipers of Ukraine

Serhiy is at the Desna shooting range with his own trusty rifle. It’s light and highly accurate — just what you need for a sniper competition like this.

Rifles like Serhiy’s are used by the Finnish army and now by certain select units of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

“It has proven its worth as an accurate, reliable, trouble-free weapon. In terms of reliability, it’s on par with the AK rifle, and in terms of accuracy, it surpasses many kinds of weapons. Without the scope the rifle weighs 4-and-a-half kilos,” Serhiy said.

The annual sniper competition was held for the 4th time. Each year the rules are different. This time the snipers are put into practically impossible situations. In some stages, they have to deal with covered scopes, in others — especially difficult targets.

“The main emphasis is not on the long-range marksmanship, but on hitting difficult targets. Like hitting an egg from 150 meters. For the most part, the competition is arranged in a way that makes it almost impossible to hit the target,” Roman, a sniping instructor said. “In this case, we’re working on another piece of technique, which is the ability of a sniper to hit small targets. This allows us to assess a sniper’s motility.”

Mykola has been as sniper for four years, but even he didn’t manage to hit every target today. However, it doesn’t discourage him. For a sniper, learning from one’s mistakes and constantly honing the craft is a must, he said.

“A sniper is the kind of a multifaceted well-rounded person that must not only be handy with a sniper rifle, but with other things — from a knife to a machine gun. They need to be able to use any weapon,” he said.

A sniper also needs to have nerves of steel and a great deal of patience. Sometimes they have to spend hours if not days tracking a target, waiting for a clear shot.

” On a real mission I had to sometimes wait up to 24 hours, changing my position, of course. But yes, it does happen. When the commander gives you a task to get a particular target, you have to wait for it,” Mykola said.

In the course of a 3-day competition, the snipers compete in a range of exercises including night shooting without night-vision equipment, a range of different targets and even camouflage.

The winning team will receive a cup and a monetary prize.