A battle-hardened female Ukrainian sniper who notched up ten confirmed kills fighting pro-Russian separatists has vowed to battle Moscow’s troops if they invade.
Outspoken war veteran Olena Bilozerska, 42, has fought in the blown-up buildings and trenches of contested Donbas, east Ukraine and says she will do it again.
She was made famous in an online video in which she is heard commentating on the “bastards” she kills as she coldly picks them off back in 2017.
Markswoman Olena was just 200m away from her enemy targets when she suddenly spotted two of them crawling from their trench spot.
She is heard saying: “Ah he got out. Look, look, look, crawling bastard.”
The shape of the first man is seen in her thermal imaging sniper sights and then in the crosshairs of her high-powered rifle.
Seconds later the image become more focused and she calmly fires three shots into the man’s body.
Soon another man is seen crawling near his now dead or dying comrade and she opens fire again, killing him.
And then a third man is seen and she shoots him too, his lifeless body falling backwards into his trench.
She believes she notched up two kills and one wounded that night, but remains resolute that she did the right thing to protect the country she loves.
Now back in Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital, she recalls: “It was the night of Ukrainian Independence Day anniversary in August 2017.
“And these Cossacks must have assumed we were lying drunk in our trenches celebrating.
“I felt something interesting was going to happen when they started getting out of a trench and passing weapons to each other.
“‘I shot three of them that night.
“Two of them were what we call “cargo 200” [an old Soviet military term for dead, referring to the labels put on coffins] and the third was “cargo 300” [wounded].”
Olena was a volunteer fighter, but later joined the Ukrainian Marine Corps.
Now she says: “I felt excited, because that night, a unit of six people came out of their trenches for the two of us - it doesn’t happen every day.
“Moral anguish about the "murder of a human" was invented by people far from the war. An armed enemy is not a person, but a target.
“You take up a weapon against my country - that's it, you're a target. If you don’t take him out in time, he might kill you or one of your comrades.
“If I didn't shoot in time and the target hid, that's when I feel angry at myself for missing my chance. And if the target is hit, I feel the pleasure of a job well done.”
She does not care about the lives of those she killed and she vows she would do it again.
She says: “When the enemy crawls towards our position to kill me, does he think if I have a husband, parents, or kids?
“‘Of course not. And I don't bother myself with stupid things either. That stuff is for books and movies.
“In real life, anyone who thinks along those lines in battle is already as good as dead.”
She cheated death one night when a machine gun tracer bullet grazed her cheek, searing her flesh.
She says: “Maybe someone was looking after me that night.
“But we all have our share of luck, I guess.”
She loathes the film world’s portrayal of snipers and says:
“‘In the movies, it looks as if a sniper sees the eyes of a living human. But you cannot see the eyes. It's hard to tell if the person is large or small.
“You just see a silhouette of an armed person and you fire at it. That's all… if you miss, you will feel as if you've lost.”
After the Independence Day incident, her husband Valeriy Voronov, a regular soldier who was beside her in the trench, collected up the cartridge casings and, following an old sniper tradition from WWI.
The couple do not have children.
He gave her a silver ring in which the bottom of cartridge case case of the bullet she used was inserted.
Olena, from Kyiv, is a celebrity in Ukraine, having written a best-selling book called “Diary of an Illegal Soldier.”’
She was well-known even before the war as her writing found her under threat of jail by the regime of Viktor Yanukovych, who was deposed in the 2014 Maidan Revolution.
She says: “A creative nature requires perfectionism in everything, and this helps a lot in my work. Of course I don’t write now though.”
Although she was demobilised from the marines in 2020, she and her husband are both members of Ukraine’s Territorial Defence Services, and, along with thousands of other reservists, are ready to fight.
She believes Putin will not order an invasion and his troop build-up is merely “intimidation.”
But along with many other Ukrainians, she is thankful for the support that Boris Johnson and the UK has given her nation in the shape of at least 2,000 NLAW anti-tank weapons plus training from UK troops.
She says: “Ukrainians are now very grateful to Britain for military assistance.
“And I’ve seen lots of people writing on social networks "God save the Queen"’
She still keeps up her marksmanship with regular practice with “Halia” - a Ukrainian name she gave to her Zbroyar Z-10 rifle.
She says: “A weapon is a living thing -- It has a soul.
“There is a Ukrainian story about “Spoilt Halia”, which is why I chose that name – the rifle is always being cleaned and adjusted and looked after like a spoilt child.
“But she does what I ask her to do, and if the Russians decide to come, I’ll be only too happy to introduce them to Halia.”
