Record Kill! Ukrainian Sniper ‘Hunts’ Russian Soldiers One By One, Comes Close To Setting Up A World Record – Kyiv Claims

By
Tanmay Kadam
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Ukraine’s military chiefs have claimed that one of their snipers has carried out the second-longest combat kill in history by shooting Russian soldiers from more than 2500 meters away.

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The sniper, whose name remains shrouded in mystery, reportedly shot and killed a Russian soldier at a distance of 2,710 meters, followed by another kill, according to claims by the Ukrainian military, which released footage of what it claimed to be the shot-looking down the sniper’s scope.

The 24-second clip, which has taken social media by storm, shows a man moving among trees before the shooter lines him up through the scope of his gun.

The thermal sight then jumps upwards, indicating the rifle has been fired, and then later, the man drops to the ground. A second man runs over to the knocked-out person in an apparent attempt to help him, but the sniper is seen firing the second time, and the second person drops to the ground.

“With the onset of dusk, snipers of special forces units of the National Guard go hunting. Very quick and accurate work by one of them last night,” said the National Guard of Ukraine in a statement accompanying the images of the shot.

The images were also shared by the Office of Strategic Communications (StratCom) of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on November 13, along with a statement saying, “A Ukrainian sniper came very close to the world record for the longest combat sniper shot.

“The occupier was eliminated by a precise shot of our special forces from a distance of 2,710 meters – a distance that now ranks 2nd in the world ranking, confirmed by the command of the Armed Forces.”

Currently, the second rank is held by a British sniper named Craig Harrison, who killed two Taliban fighters from a range of 2,475 meters in Helmand Province, Afghanistan, in 2009. The first place is held by a Canadian sniper who took out an ISIS militant from a distance of 3,540 meters at an undisclosed location in Iraq in 2017.

SNIPER-KILL
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How Did Ukraine Confirm The Kill?

EurAsian Times could not independently verify the claims made by the Ukrainian military, which did not provide any other details of the incident, such as the timing, location, or the weapon used by the shooter.

Some netizens have raised doubts about the footage, saying there was too short an interval between the shot being fired and the soldier going down on the ground for the distance claimed to have been covered.

When the Canadian sniper made his record-breaking kill in 2017, it took around 10 seconds for the bullet to reach its target, according to the information provided by the Canadian Armed Forces.

The shot was taken from the upper floors of a high-rise building using a McMillan TAC-50 sniper rifle. Also, the incident occurred in Mosul, as per a report by the news site SOFREP.

Craig Harrison took the shot using an L115A3 Long Range Rifle. He said that conditions at the time of the shot were ‘perfect’ – no wind, mild weather, and good visibility.

Also, the Ukrainian military did not specify how it had confirmed its sniper’s kill. It is challenging to confirm military kills during the conflict because of the risks involved in getting information from behind enemy lines. Therefore confirmations are primarily based on self-reporting by soldiers.

In the case of record-breaking shot by the Canadian sniper, it is believed to have been filmed by a Predator drone circling overhead at the time.

While in the case of Harrison, the Afghan National Police confirmed that he had killed two Taliban combatants after having visited the shooting site shortly afterward to try and retrieve the militants’ weapons.

After that, an Apache helicopter with a laser finder was sent overhead to the location from where Harrison had taken the shot to measure the distance between his position and the one where Taliban militants were killed.

Apart from the previous world records, a separate record is held by another British sniper for killing six Taliban combatants with a single bullet after it hit the trigger switch of a suicide vest of one of the militants.

The shot was taken by a 20-year-old Lance Corporal of the Coldstream Guards from a distance of 850 meters, in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan, in December 2013.

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