Volunteer sniper embodies Ukraine’s versatile military

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Before taking a shot, Ukrainian sniper Andriy buries his face in a foldout mat, breathing slowly and deliberately.

“I need to be completely relaxed, to find a place where I will not move the rifle when I pull the trigger,” he says. “I don’t think about anything. It’s a kind of vacuum.”

In a semicircle around his head are boxes of bullets, printouts of charts, a heavy-duty stapler and a roll of tape.

Strapped to his wrist is a monitor, which is the shape of a jewelry box. It's a ballistics calculator to factor in the wind and other surrounding conditions. Bees persistently circling his head and scope are ignored.

After a long pause, he says the word “shot” in Ukrainian.

Crack! A sound not unlike a starting gun used at sporting events produces a reflexive jolt in people unaccustomed to war.

Six months ago, the noise might have startled Andriy, who had moved to Western Europe to pursue a career in engineering.

His experience resembles that of many Ukrainians who returned home to the war, abruptly pulled from civilian life to embrace fighting methods ‒ modern but also makeshift ‒ that have held back the far larger Russian military.

Andriy comes from Bucha, a district near Kyiv’s airport that was hammered during the Russian advance. Hundreds of civilian killings took place there, the bodies found in mass graves or left lying where they were shot in what the United Nations describes as potential war crimes.

Tall and with a good command of English, the sniper spoke to The Associated Press while practicing alone at an informal firing range near Kyiv, hoping to resolve some issues with his weapon through hours of trial and error before his next deployment.

He asked only to be identified by his first name...