The Role of Snipers in the Donbas Trench War

This week I had a rather detailed conversation with a close friend who’s got a considerable amount of ‘time behind the glass’, so to speak. We talked about the coming festivities, the training doctrine of the Scout Course and tailoring it to producing the most lethal guerrillas possible, and recent developments to the craft from other areas. Donbass is a great example of modern updates to a very old profession. A skilled sniper is the most dangerous man on the battlefield.
Coming from the Jamestown Foundation, here’s a great AAR.
 

Publication: Eurasia Daily Monitor Volume: 17 Issue: 26

In the positional war in Ukraine’s eastern region of Donbas, where enemy trenches are often only a hundred meters away from each other, snipers have a target-rich environment and play a critical tactical role. As elsewhere, snipers in the Donbas war proved to be an effective force multiplier on the battlefield, able to precisely strike long-range enemy targets, conduct indispensable reconnaissance of enemy movements and positions, as well as demoralize enemy troops.
Ukrainian military casualties from sniper attacks have been on the rise for months. According to estimates, about a third of Ukrainian soldiers fall to enemy sniper fire. Ukrainian military intelligence and volunteers have been tracing the presence of both Russian professional snipers and their proxies (Tyzhden.ua, July 25, 2019). The latter are trained in Russian military camps to defend the separatist forward line and play a propaganda role to deflect attention from the presence of Russian professional snipers in the rear (Milnavigator, July 21, 2019).
Russian snipers take shots under the cover of heavy indirect fire, luring Ukrainians with a hail of mortars, machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and anti-tank systems to reveal their positions (Facebook.com/pressjfo.news, December 22, 2019). And when the hissing of mortars and artillery subsides, snipers line up their targets. In a few cases, the Russian snipers even used locals as human shields to cover their positions (TSN, January 31, 2020).
Ukrainian commanders face a tough choice: fire back and alert an enemy sniper; or show restraint and encourage the enemy to come closer. For shelter, Ukrainians dig deeper trenches and buttress their fortifications. For repelling enemy snipers, Ukraine trains and deploys its counter-sniper teams (Spetskor, April 9, 2019).
At the onset of the war, unlike Russia’s battle-tested snipers, Ukraine’s Armed Forces had no clear distinction between an infantry sniper or marksman and barely had any professional snipers that met North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) standards. The designated marksmen were mainly found in Ukraine’s special forces units providing short-range support with precision fire. Ukraine had to build their sniper program from scratch, bringing in foreign instructors to teach state-of-the-art methods (Gazeta.ua, August 3, 2019). Ukrainian snipers in schools like Desna now undergo rigorous selection and training which greatly improved their ability to strike long-range targets. Today Ukrainian snipers can successfully operate at 2,500 meters.
Despite progress made, Ukrainian snipers are underfunded. Ukrainian sniper instructors admit that they can barely afford 1,000 bullets to train each sniper. For comparison, it takes a sniper from the United States about 10,000 rounds to master the tradecraft (Donbas.Realii, December 2, 2019). Overall, a US sniper with a two-year contract costs the United States Army about $1,000,000. By contrast, the equipment of a Ukrainian sniper can cost about 1,000,000 hryvnias ($40,000)—an astronomical figure for a country with a struggling economy. Much of what snipers need, such as night vision devices, camouflage, rangefinders, ammunition, thermal sights, and silencers is provided by volunteers or by the snipers themselves. Still, capability gaps remain. For instance, to gauge distances, Ukrainians often must rely on their maps, which can be off by 10–20 meters (Donbas.Realii, December 17, 2019).
Throughout the war, Russian snipers have held the advantage, while Ukraine has had to be creative to catch up. Although both began fighting with the same Soviet sniper rifle, the Dragunov (SVD-63), the Russian SVDs had new barrels and PSO-3 scopes and fired new high-quality rounds. Ukrainians, on the other hand, wielded Soviet-era SVDs with worn-out barrels and old scopes and were using up the last low-quality SVD sniper rounds and then switching to machine gun rounds. To address these shortcomings, Ukrainian volunteers helped upgrade the SVDs with new silencers, sights, and bipods, but the old barrels still impair accuracy (Donbas.Realii, November 25, 2019).
As the war progressed, the dynamics of the battlefield demanded new long-range effective weapons. The SVD is unsuitable as it is designed for suppressive fire at up to 800 meters. Both sides continue to test new rifles and rounds seeking an edge. Although the SVD is still the main weapon used by local proxies at the forward line of defense, Russian professional snipers at the middle and rear lines use bolt-action sniper rifles like the ORSIS T-5000 and the large caliber OSV and ASVK that fire three times farther than the SVD (Donbas.Realii, December 25, 2017).
To be effective against Russian rifles requires more powerful weapons than the old SVD. Ukrainian forces are abandoning their Soviet legacy weapons in favor of Western and Ukrainian designs. Volunteers and private companies procured hundreds of carbine hunting rifles and NATO round rifles. The UR-10, manufactured by a Ukrainian company, Zbroyar, has a range of 1,200 meters and is designed to replace the SVD (Expres, December 7, 2019). Its higher-quality optics and .308 caliber rounds improve precision, while a newer PBS silencer better camouflages the fire (Ukrainian military TV, May 27, 2019). The long-range Savage, Barrett, and Canadian PGW LRT-3 are also now used by Ukrainian snipers. However, despite their long-range and hard-hitting capabilities, experts say that in the trench war, Ukrainian snipers need smaller caliber rifles like UR-10, VPR-308, Galatz, or McMillan. Given their lighter weight and usability, they are more effective and allow better mobility (Depo.ua, August 14, 2018).
While replacing the SVD will still take a couple of years, the ammunition to counter Russian powerful bolt-action rifles is needed today. With some volunteer supplies of NATO’s commercial version .308 Winchester and .338 Lapua Magnum rounds, the ammunition is short of what is needed for bolt-action rifles in training and in the field (Donbas.Realii, December 2, 2019).
Ukrainian snipers have made significant advances in training and new weapons procurement. Adding sniper teams to each battalion, not just special forces, delivered an immediate force multiplier. Yet, Ukraine may still take another ten years to fully realize its sniper potential. Poor funding, army bureaucracy, and ammunition shortages preclude Ukrainian snipers from reaching their potential today. With proper resources, Ukrainian snipers will be more capable of hindering Russian advancement and forcing Moscow to pay a higher price for its aggression.
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About the Author: NC Scout

NC Scout is the nom de guerre of a former Infantry Scout and Sergeant in one of the Army’s best Reconnaissance Units. He has combat tours in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He teaches a series of courses focusing on small unit skills rarely if ever taught anywhere else in the prepping and survival field, including his RTO Course which focuses on small unit communications. In his free time he is an avid hunter, bushcrafter, writer, long range shooter, prepper, amateur radio operator and Libertarian activist. He can be contacted at [email protected] or via his blog at brushbeater.wordpress.com .

12 Comments

  1. Anonymous January 15, 2021 at 05:06

    5

  2. Yer Ol Pal January 15, 2021 at 10:00

    Amazing that in 2021 we are talking about static trench warfare and military needing to adapt tactics and develop snipers. Sounds like something people would have been talking about in 1921. What is new is truly old.
    Interesting too that Ukrainians are state actors in a similar position to guerrilla forces. Their boys probably could have bought some nice toys with the millions that was laundered to the Biden family.
    In other news, if there was any doubt that we have a target on our backs, FBI, DHS, and the Nat’l Counter-terrorism Center have named right wing extremists as the #1 terrorist threat of 2021, citing “partisan grievances” and us being emboldened by the capitol shenanigans. https://www.oann.com/fbi-dhs-natl-counterterrorism-center-point-to-anti-govt-extremists-as-greatest-domestic-terrorism-threat-of-2021/
    A cynical man might think that the deepstate orchestrated the steal and the capitol fuckery to push some people into doing something stupid and emotional so they can put the hammer on us. And if somehow no one takes the bait (unlikely), they’ll just false flag it.
    Be smart folks. Be careful if you are taking risks, there are tangible rewards and the achievement of strategic goals. Cold and calculating, keep your heads.

    • Juri January 15, 2021 at 12:12

      Ukraine never had real reforms. Their army before the war was one big corruption scheme and promotion was exclusively by personal contacts. For example, when you have a friend who is truck driver and he loses the job and can`t find another because of excessive drinking , then you remember that long ago this friend defended you in the school fight and arrange your friend a job as tank battalion commander.
      Now the second problem is, that nobody in Ukraine knows, what they want to gain. War must have purpose and exit strategy. Ukraine does not have any idea how they should go forward. And this mirroring also in the army. Because of that, we saw some weird mix from WW II standards mixed up with guerilla stuff. When the country itself is a mess, then no wonder than army is similar.
      This problem is actually in every European Army. Every time I get some European whatever military manual, my first thought is always. We are not in the WW II anymore. It is 21th century, not 1945 Germany. Ukraine sniper problems are actually mirror of the European Army problems. Ukros do what foreign instructors tell them to do.
      So the Ukro army trained by European instructors is like Joe Biden marring with Hillary Clinton. 2 monsters from the past with no sense of reality whatsoever and no idea what to do. Those Ukrainians should figure out first what they want and only after that they need equipment, sniping stuff or whatever. Or is a war against Russia winnable at all ?
      Russian strategy is simple and clear. Long and painful attrition with no end in sight until average Ukrainian changes its mind and public opinion shifts toward friendly relations with Russia again.
      My personal feeling is that Donald also uses this strategy as well. Bing things need big causes and before making a move, better make sure that average Joe understands that there was really no other option left. That is why Donald letting things so far. He demonstrating to everybody that all less violent solution are tried and not working. So the big bang is only option left.

      • BravoCharlie January 15, 2021 at 17:22

        I heard a story about union forces asking a captured confederate soldier why he was fighting in the war and he answered “cause y’all are down here”

      • Karl Dahl January 15, 2021 at 18:11

        My Uke friends seem to believe that the “war” in Donbass is a heat sink into which patriotic Ukrainian males are thrown so that their energy is not in western Ukraine or the capitol, causing trouble for the kleptocrats.

      • Johnny Paratrooper January 15, 2021 at 19:11

        Exactly. Ukraine would best be served using a tactic of false surrender. Like Iraq.
        Then, they can draw in their enemy and turn a foreign aggressor into a foreign aggressor who is now a foreign occupier responsible for all things Ukraine.
        Then, everything is Russia’s fault. Russia is very heavy handed. I spoke to a guy once that said he was standing outside an office building having a cigarette in broad daylight when Russia’s military opened fire and killed about 10 female workers around 25 years old.
        Having a static front that solves nothing is the primary problem in nearly every war.
        Ukraine should begin building massive concrete walls like we did in Sadr City.
        And then invite the Russians in. Their soldiers can stare at concrete slabs all day and do nothing but get paid.

  3. frmr180A January 15, 2021 at 11:37

    Slava Ukraina! Heroim Slava!

  4. Machine Trooper January 15, 2021 at 15:02

    Interesting how different forces employ snipers. Back before Gulf War 1 we assumed that a sniper would “one shot one kill” then hide until conditions were good for exfil. And of course we almost always trained in the woods. That kinda’ changed over the years.
    Some forces just have them travel with the main force, and when contact is made, deploy the sniper team to an advantageous area while rounds are coming uprange. Of course–we had done it in WWII and Vietnam. Don’t know why peacetime doctrine painted us into a box.
    Some forces have sent their snipers on suicide missions.
    I think we’re gonna see a lot more spontaneous on-the-fly deployment of snipers. I’d like to know more about counter-sniper tactics and SOPs. Federal troops are likely to be using a lot of them against us.

    • NC Scout January 15, 2021 at 16:07

      It is. Even our doctrine is different depending on the MTOE of the unit. Mech Companies have a Sniper team assigned to the HQ element for a variety of tasks. Light Infantry Battalions have a whole section in the Scout Platoon. And at the Pathfinder / RRD / LRS level, there’s usually one on each team.
      The thing is- contemporary Sniper culture and doctrine is a product of GWOT. That ain’t gonna work in much of the US.

    • Johnny Paratrooper January 15, 2021 at 19:04

      John West’s book goes into this topic in great detail. Consistently begging this very same question…
      The main themes I took away from his book are 3 points.
      1) Arts of warfare are lived and learned. Then forgotten. Sometimes at great expense. He blames the TRADOC and leadership.
      2) Need. There was no other method to employ. Like Stalingrad…
      3) Need, again. But this is because of a lack of explosives and Machine-guns. Rifles and Pistols are commonly acquired, concealable, and ordinary to use.
      The “Snipers” in Baghdad missed me several times. And, Bullet Proof glass saved me several times. They were using M-16’s based on my analysis of the impact marks on my turret windows.
      One thing I know, any Scout/Sniper tactics are exhausting, and are not for the average person. The degree of situational awareness, mission planning, and discipline requires above average physical and mental conditioning. Including intimate knowledge of area, tasks, and tools.
      John West’s book is an excellent crash course on “Where, When, Who, How, and What” a sniper is.
      He includes pistols/SMGs in his list of tools for a sniper. Which I had never considered previously.
      He favors the .44 magnum revolver for power and penetration. Specifically through windows and doors. Though he deducts points because you cannot effectively suppress a revolver.
      He has nearly two whole chapters on suppressors. And he even goes so far as to say a guerrilla would be best served trying to manufacture a suppressor, instead of merely utilizing a standard rifle. He even notes that you don’t need to make a super suppressor, but simply a basic one, strong enough to survive the fight. He argues that concealing the noise in modern war is most important because video can be analyzed for the origin of the sound. IE, forensics will show what direction most people look in, and run from.
      Thereby giving away the snipers “hide” so that fibers, Gunshot residue, and DNA can be exploited by investigators.
      I wish he included more on forensics. But he simply says “Any evidence, including powder brand and type, will be used to locate a sniper”
      He averages that about 20% of battlefield casualties are from talented marksmen and formally trained snipers. And about 50% are from IEDs. You would be surprised to learn how much resources it requires to find a sniper or defend from one.
      In Baghdad, I saw Machine-guns and IEDs as the primary causes of death.
      Mortars and Snipers were clearly rushing their craft while we were there. Lots of close calls, but no bingo. They were very afraid of us.

  5. Winston January 16, 2021 at 22:32

    Since the Obama Admin.-US DoS-Soros coup carried out against the Ukrainian public in FEB 2014 ( and against Trump and 75.4 million traditional Americans in 2020-21 ) The Kiev government has been run by the US DoS and Soros-vetted oligarchs- just as ours is. The mercenary-heavy Ukrop Army shoots old people in the border villages as well as the murder of 48 people who held a rally against the neo-liberal coup were burned to death, beaten and shot by ‘Svoboda’ and other W. Ukraine Banderite formations in the Odessa Trade Union Bldg.massacre in May of 2014.. There are videos of their criminality and cold-blooded murders in real time.

    • Juri January 17, 2021 at 07:46

      Unfortunately yes. In the Ukraine back in the 2014, they did the same trick what they do now in US. Liberals turned to patriots and everybody who does not accept their regime, is unpatriotic traitor, Russian agent or domestic terrorist.

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