Damaged loners or ruthless assassins? After a Ukrainian sharpshooter’s combat killings of Russians, we look at warfare’s top marksmen
The thermal-imaging telescope shows a Russian soldier on Ukraine’s frontline, so distant that he is just a white moving blob. Creeping through woods nearly two miles away, he seems safely beyond his enemy’s reach.
Then, as a telescope’s crosshair hovers over him, he drops dead – as does a comrade who goes to his rescue.
The first demonstration of some new drone weaponry, perhaps, devised by Kyiv’s ever-resourceful tech warriors? No. Instead, this was the work of a much older form of remote warfare – the sniper.
Nonetheless, the footage – released this week by Ukrainian officials – still claims to show military history in the making.