Inside Ukraine’s Fast-Tracked Sniper Training Course

This unearthly procession is a band of Ukrainian soldiers undergoing training at the Alfa Bravo sniper course at an unspecified location near the front lines in Ukraine.

A soldier dressed in a camouflage cloak aims his rifle during the training.

The snipers are draped in camouflage known in English as ghillie suits. In Ukrainian and Russian, the coverings are called “kikimora,” after a witchy spirit of Slavic folklore.
 

A cement target takes a direct hit during live-firing exercises.

Viktor Elanskiy, an instructor at the Alpha Bravo course and a specialist in precision shooting, claims the importance of snipers is forgotten by militaries after major conflicts. “Then, when war breaks out again, everyone starts shouting, ‘Where are our snipers? We can’t operate without them!’" he says.

The training, which would take more than a year in peacetime, is sped through in just 21 days due to the urgent need for snipers on Ukraine’s front lines.

A participant fires a round during training. 

Elanskiy says many former snipers in Ukraine have been retrained to operate weaponized FPV (first-person view) drones, but he insists concealed marksmen are still irreplaceable on the battlefield. “Drones can’t fly in heavy rain,” the trainer says, while “snipers can shoot in any weather.”

Two Ukrainian soldiers are seen walking the course. 

As an example of the impact a single sniper’s bullet can have on enemy forces, Elanskiy cites an incident during fighting around Kyupyansk in northeastern Ukraine.

“Our sniper hit a Russian soldier from 800 meters away,” he said. “Only one shot, but what happened? Along their entire front line, all the [Russians] put on their body armor and helmets. In just one day! This is the work of a sniper. He made them anxious. They realized that this is not a resort, that they have come to a foreign land where they are not welcome.”

An instructor observes target practice.

The Alpha Bravo training includes shooting in the darkness of night using thermal-imaging sights. With a limited budget to simulate warm enemy targets, the instructors light a small fire in a pit beneath the metal targets, which then glow vividly through the night-vision sights.

“The cost is 50 hryvnyas ($1.25) for a bag of barbeque charcoal,” Elanskiy says. “And with that, you can train an entire unit.”

A sniper student operates a Ukrainian-made rifle.

Many of the weapons the snipers use were developed in Ukraine, including the UAR-10 rifle, and the Snipex Alligator, an anti-materiel gun that uses cigar-sized bullets capable of piercing steel armor. 

Kateryna, a female sniper using a pseudonym, is photographed after speaking to journalists from beneath her kikimora. Kateryna is being trained in camouflage, an art in and of itself.

“If you've chosen a position to lie in, you can't always monitor your legs, your weapon,” Kateryna explains. “For example, a belted knife can glint in the light. You need to take this into account," she says.

During the course, “instructors walk around, look at our positions, point out mistakes, take pictures, then we analyze it all," Kateryna says.

A small Ukrainian flag patch tucked away inside a student's kikimora.

Kateryna has served in the Ukrainian military for more than five years and has no desire to stay on in the restrictive environment beyond a hoped-for Ukrainian victory. “I want to travel the world, to see Spain and Finland, and visit America again,” she says.

The hardest thing, she says, is facing up to the fact that the conflict sparked by Russia’s invasion is not likely to end soon. “You make a big contribution [to the defense of Ukraine], but you don’t see where the end is, or whether you’ll even live to see that end,” she says.

This photo gallery is an adapted version of the original report by Olena Maksimenko and Danylo Dubchak, first published by Frontliner.