Ukrainian sniper breaks cover, hits world record impact of nearly 4 kilometers

The Ukrainian sniper had stood motionless for hours in near-freezing temperatures when the commando arrived to shoot a Russian soldier nearly 4 kilometers away. “You can,” his observer said, and Vyacheslav Kovalskiy pulled the trigger.

The bullet took about nine seconds to hit its target, which deformed and fell, according to video of the shooting reviewed by The Wall Street Journal. Kovalskiy and Ukraine say the shot set a new distance record for a sniper, surpassing the previously recognized mark by more than 260 meters.

Although combat shots like this are not verified by an outside judge, the shot has boosted Ukraine’s morale as the country’s forces struggle to advance along the front line. A Ukrainian sniper, using a Ukrainian-made weapon and bullet, had broken the record. The sniper has played a prominent role in the war against Russia, where static front lines on flat terrain are suitable for discipline, although drones and mines are changing the way snipers operate.

The grisly record is also a shot heard around the world from snipers, a group of highly trained marksmen who have long pushed the limits of how far a bullet can travel accurately. Some doubt Kovalskiy’s shot is a record.

To hit targets at ever greater distances, snipers rely heavily on mathematics, calculating a range of technical factors, from air humidity to wind speed, passing through the temperature and curvature of the Earth. They also need a good rifle and a lot of luck.

On November 18, Kovalskiy was already readying his rifle when the bullet hit its target and a member of his team shouted that it was a hit. The shooting was filmed and, after reviewing the footage later, Kovalskiy and other snipers concluded that it had been fatal.

“I thought the Russians would know by now that this is what the Ukrainians are capable of doing,” said Kovalskiy, who has not yet been identified or spoken to the media.

“Let them stay at home and be afraid,” he added.

Several snipers and ballistics experts contacted by the Journal said that while the shot is possible with the equipment described, it would be difficult to execute given uncontrollable variables, including weather, that would have to be taken into account at times. such distances.

“For the conventional sniper, there are so many variables that are difficult to quantify that the reality is that anything over 1,300 yards may be more luck than skill,” said Steve Walsh, former instructor of US Marine sniper.

Kovalskiy’s shot reached about 3.8 kilometers, about a third farther than the Golden Gate Bridge. This distance would break a record of 3.5 kilometers set in 2017 by a member of the Canadian Special Forces in Iraq.

The 58-year-old former businessman’s journey into martial mythology began just before dawn on Nov. 18, when he and his spotter, a companion who calculates distance, wind speed and other variables , established positions across the river from a Russian military base in the Kherson region of eastern Ukraine.

The two men, who are part of a military counterintelligence division of the Security Service of Ukraine (SBU), observed groups of Russian soldiers chopping firewood. They considered the ranks of these men too low to fire. Around noon, a group of five soldiers appeared and Kovalskiy noticed one giving instructions. He had his officer.

The observer got to work. He used a laser to measure the distance to the soldiers. Using specialized software and weather data, he concluded that there was a strong wind that would move the ball about 60 yards from its path. He calculated humidity and temperature, which affect how fast the ball moves.

Even the rotation and curvature of the Earth must be taken into account for long-range shooting. When the ball reaches the set distance, the target has already moved with the rotation of the Earth.

Using all of these variables, Kovalskiy tested a shot approximately 305 yards from the target side. It was a mistake, the observer told him. They were wrong about the wind speed.

He quickly restarted, reloaded and aimed.

“You have to (shoot) immediately because the wind is constantly changing,” Kovalskiy said.

In the video of the shooting, the Russian officer can be seen gesturing toward the men who had gathered around him. The observer gave his usual order to fire.

“You can,” he said.

Kovalskiy pulled the trigger. The video shows an interval between shot and impact of about 9 seconds, enough time for a target to have moved. American ballistics expert Brad Millard timed the shot in pictures and said that was the correct time it would take for this type of bullet to reach 3.8 kilometers.

A sniper will aim his barrel above a target because gravity forces the bullet downward. Kovalskiy’s shot resembled a mini artillery shell, traveling more than 100 meters above the level of the target before descending toward the unsuspecting officer.

In the footage, the officer bends and falls and his men flee. The video ends.

The seizure was widely covered by Ukrainian news sites. Ukrainian soldiers on the front line also looked on with pride. In the Kreminna Forest in eastern Ukraine, a former sniper turned shooter said hearing the news was a “punch in the air” moment.

“Everyone was talking about it,” he said.

Ukraine needs a helping hand. A much-heralded counter-offensive was hampered by Russia’s stubborn defense. The country has lost tens of thousands of soldiers and Russia continues to bomb civilian sites.

Countries at war often turn to legends of combat to boost morale, and countries of the former Soviet Union have a history of elevating the sniper to the level of hero. Early in this war, Ukrainians traded stories about the “ghost of kyiv,” a Ukrainian fighter pilot credited with shooting down several Russian planes. The Ukrainian military later stated that, more than an individual pilot, the “Ghost of kyiv” was a composite symbolizing the combined heroism of its pilots.

Millard, the American expert who designs software to test weapons ballistics, says he doubts the Ukrainian sniper team knew for sure that the officer was killed.

The shot hit the chest or stomach, Kovalskiy said. Having seen the footage multiple times, he is sure the soldier died because of the way he immediately doubled over and fell. The bullet they used was also so large and would have traveled at such speed that it would be impossible to survive such an impact, he said.

“There is no chance he will survive,” Kovalskiy said.

The lack of confirmation that the shooting was fatal is likely to spark lingering skepticism. When British sniper Craig Harrison broke the then-record in Afghanistan in 2009, killing two people, the British military confirmed the sighting of the bodies.

Kovalskiy says online critics wrongly base many of their calculations on the type of bullet used by the record-breaking Canadian sniper.

A bullet consists of the projectile that hits a target and the casing containing the explosive material that brings it there. Kovalskiy’s bullet was custom made by a local gunsmith. It has a similar projectile to the Canadian, but with a larger casing that could hold more propellant, making it faster.

In kyiv, Kovalskiy and his spotter laid out his gun and bullets for inspection.

The long, thin weapon is a specialized sniper rifle called the Lord of the Horizon, of which Kovalskiy’s is one of about 10. The balls are 16 cm long.

The barrel was made by the American company Bartlein Barrels and the sight comes from Japan. But the rest is Ukrainian, which increases local pride.

Kovalskiy and his observer wonder why there is so much skepticism about a shot from this distance when targets, even stationary ones, have been hit at these distances repeatedly in competitions like King of the Two Mile in the United States.

The two men are not just any snipers. Kovalskiy has won long-range shooting competitions in Europe and North America for decades and first met his spotter at such competitions in Ukraine.

But this time, Kovalskiy hit a man and not an inanimate target. Unlike most soldiers, who may never see an enemy’s face, much less know if they have killed them, snipers seek to kill people they can see clearly and do not. generally have no doubt as to whether they took their lives.

Harrison, the former British sniper, said the record was a heavy crown. Although he has since written a book about his experiences, the sniper says the file brought him unhappiness for years. He was commissioned by the British military without their permission, leading to threats against his life and that of his family, he said.

Harrison said the snipers contributed to the severe post-traumatic stress disorder he suffered after fighting in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I will forever keep this last moment of his life in my mind. “I know he will never leave me,” he writes in his book.

Kovalskiy and his observer say they have no regrets about killing Russians. Despite his age, the Ukrainian enlisted as a sniper on the first day of the full-scale invasion of Russia.

“I’m not worried at all,” Kovalskiy said.