The Ghost of Bakhmut: Ukrainian sniper ‘who has killed 113 Russians’ describes how his elite squad hunts targets with deadly shots from up to 1.5 miles away – among the furthest sniper kills in history

An elite Ukrainian sniper who claimed to be personally responsible for the deaths of 113 Russian soldiers over the past nine months has revealed exactly how his team hunts down and kills his targets.

The Ghost of Bakhmut, the commander of the elite sniper team ‘Ghosts of Bakhmut’, revealed that his team, consisting of several dozen highly trained soldiers, killed 558 Russian soldiers in the same period.

Ghost, his call sign in the field, also claims to have pulled off one of the largest sniper kills in history, with the team’s last confirmed target located 1.5 miles away, or three times the length of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest building in the world.

He and his team said they typically hunt high-value Russian targets from a typical range of about 70 meters, and are often thrown into “hotspots” as a vanguard for Ukraine’s counteroffensive actions, which have intensified in recent months.

“If an offensive or counter-offensive is planned, our job is to first go in and clear the area,” the unnamed commander told Insider.

The unit’s snipers often have to wait in one position for up to 16 hours a day and must be very well camouflaged.

The unit’s main weapon is the American Barrett M107A1, although members will also use the Barrett MRAD, as well as some Ukrainian rifles, including the UAR-10 and the Snipex Alligator.

The effective range of the Barrett M107A1, considered the most powerful weapon used by the Ghosts, is 1.84 miles according to the owner’s manual, while the maximum range is 4.99 kilometers.

The kills committed by the squad, which is named after their leader, are recorded electronically using the sights of their guns, and the unit then remains in their position for three to five hours to ensure their prey has been neutralized.

But he said the deadly work is grueling and can mentally tear people apart.

“It’s nothing like American films that romanticize the work of snipers and show it as very glamorous.”

He said most of the unit’s work is based on survival.

‘You learn to calculate, you do the math. You learn to camouflage yourself, you learn about the environment. You can shoot well, but if you can’t survive, it’s of no value.’

‘We work 24 hours a day, we make no distinction between day and night. There are no weekends.

“You’re completely exhausted, all your juices have been squeezed out of you, and when you come back from a mission, you’re a complete mess.”

He said when they return from missions, they try to maintain some degree of normalcy.

Ghost said he tries to call his young daughter as often as possible and writes and sings songs in his spare time.

He added that the unit keeps their morale high with the help of their husky Lola, described by Ghost as the unit’s “anti-depressant.”

The elite team required ten months of training before deploying to Bakhmut.

Meanwhile, Ghost himself, an entrepreneur in another life, says he has been working as a sniper since 2014, signing up for military service after Russia illegally annexed Crimea and receiving sniper training from British, American, Canadian and Lithuanian instructors in 2016.

Ghost says the team’s training has been put to good use, as no member of his team has died.

He said that so far only he and another sniper have been injured during a mission in which a mine exploded near him, sending shrapnel into his leg.

This injury forced him to stay in the hospital for twelve days.

He said the key to the unit’s success is that it is a close-knit and self-sufficient group that all believes wholeheartedly in the cause of Ukraine.

‘I have absolute confidence in every man who works with me.

‘We are absolutely self-reliant. Every part of our job is fulfilled by our own members: we have our own drivers, we have our own truck repairers, everything we do, we do ourselves.

‘We are not dependent on anyone outside our unit. That’s probably why we’re all still alive and together.”

‘Courage is something that can be cherished. You have to be tough, you have to be very resilient, very focused, psychologically very resilient and of course patriotic.

“This aspect of patriotism is very important because a person must understand why he or she is doing it.”