A deadly Russian sniper with a kill list of 40 has been captured by Ukrainian troops, Kyiv claims.
Irina Starikova is said to have told her captors that Russian forces left her to die after she was wounded in battle.
She served with the Russian separatists in the Donestk region of Ukraine - which had been fighting Kyiv since 2014.
Ukrainian armed forces announced Starikova's capture saying she "shot our prisoners in 2014".
Her capture has also been confirmed by Giorgi Revishvili, a researcher at the Department of War Studies at King’s College London.
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He tweeted “Ukrainian forces captured infamous sniper fighting on the side of ORDLO, call sign Bagira” - which refers to how the breakaway Russian-speaking regions are called.
He added that she s allegedly responsible for “killing 40 Ukrainians including civilians”.
Starikova is originally from Serbia and has been hunted by Ukrainians since 2014, according to reports.
Ukraine’s Obozrevatel news website quotes a soldier named Vlad Ivanov who said Starikova was given medical treatment when captured.
The sniper is also quoted as saying that “they left, knowing that I was injured and had the opportunity to pick me up…hoping that I would die”.
Starikova was a sniper of 11th Specialized Special Operations Division, it has been reported.
Her background is shrouded in mystery as some reports say she is a former handball player named Daniela Lazovic, who has a conviction for drug trafficking.
It has also been alleged that she was a nun at one point in her life.
It comes as an elite sniper rumoured to have been killed by Russian troops after dropping into war-torn Ukraine said he was just in "black-out mode".
The Canadian sharpshooter, known only as 'Wali', said he believes Moscow spread reports of his supposed death as part of its propaganda campaign.
However, he said he has had some close calls of late, including surviving a tank shelling while hiding inside a house.
Wali joined the war effort soon after Vladimir Putin ordered the attack on February 24 and had been keeping followers on social up to date with what he was doing.
But he has spent the last week in the Kyiv region, fighting alongside the Ukrainian Armed forces and his Canadian partner - and so has not been able to do as much blogging.
