⬇️ Long read with stories and adult assessments that may not please everyone, but I, for my part, as a person, as a professor, as a volunteer, do everything I can and more, just like our snipers. What the state did, read below.
Our assistance to snipers began in the spring of 2022, as the Azov snipers, who were stopping the enemy’s advance on Zaporizhzhia, asked us for cartridges. Who should have given them cartridges? The state! But we did, and this played a decisive role in stopping the advance during intense fighting in the Huliaipole area. Then we called the fundraising “People’s Cartridge,” because the people replaced the state.
The solidarity of the people replaced the institutions, because the latter were extremely passive. We also began to help Serhiy Poznyak with cartridges – and have been helping for three years now, because the state does not even think of investing in his special forces platoon. Everything is based on enthusiasm, and we are grateful that they were allowed to act like snipers, and not ordered to die with machine guns in their hands – as happened more than once with other snipers of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Border Guards, and even the GUR.
It so happened that in the spring of 2022, we armed ten snipers from the 95th brigade, and during one battle they prevented the battalion from being surrounded and saved hundreds of people. On the day this happened, we realized the power of sniper groups and began to develop them.
We developed a concept for a core of snipers with long-range rifles, developed ideas for what sniper support should be like. We invested a lot, and then we found a manual from 2021 on the experience of sniping during the ATO. The booklet contained a full description of what sniper groups should be like, and this completely coincided with our vision.
Even then, I had a question: if everything is already written in the manual, why is it not being implemented? Why is the state not developing sniping in accordance with what it itself recognized as correct, approved by the decisions of the Ministry of Defense and the General Staff?
Why do Soviet ideas about their work and their needs prevail regarding snipers?
We tried to reach out to the leadership three times with our ideas, but quickly realized that it was better to do everything ourselves as much as possible. Because the state was not doing even much more important things.
In 2022, we significantly strengthened the defense with our sniper groups, massively providing .338 caliber rifles, which were extremely effective at that time. Sniper groups with .50 BMG caliber rifles played an important role in the Kherson and Kharkiv offensive. Snipers with .338 caliber also worked wonders, preserving our personnel during the offensive.
Already at the end of 2022, it was obvious that it was necessary to form divisions instead of brigades, arm them as the Germans were armed in World War II, plus modern means of warfare. The fact that our leadership did not move to the division level, because in a large number of brigades it is easier to hide losses, was already a crime.
The positive experience of 2022 influenced our vision of actions during the counteroffensive of 2023, and we invested in training the snipers of the offensive corps. When the offensive began and significant problems began, these snipers showed themselves in the best possible way. The pinnacle of their exploits was that once a group of 8 snipers saved a brigade, leading it from a trap to advantageous routes for the assault on a dominant height. The losses during the counteroffensive were the first signal that the army needed to be reformed immediately!
The events of the fall of 2023 and all of 2024 confirmed this. Syrskyi and Zelenskyi constantly demanded that the brigades recapture lost positions, after huge losses there was a much greater rollback and the loss of very advantageous positions, where it would have been possible to hold the defense for a long time - if people and equipment had not been lost in repelling the plantings before that or additional resources had been provided to the front in time. Syrskyi provided battalions, and he provided companies from some brigades to reinforce others, made various consolidated groups, and this negatively affected both the level of losses and the results of battles.
During this period, sniper companies are being massively developed, because in the previous period the huge benefit from snipers was obvious. But these companies suffered great losses with the increasing dominance of drones, half of them disintegrated, half are adapting to the modern battlefield with great difficulty. Finally, a significant number of 338LM rifles were provided by the state and Western partners - but at a time when this caliber had already ceased to meet the requirements of modern warfare!
War is changing rapidly. Today, the main sniper caliber is the 375 caliber, and it would be good if the state provided the best snipers with rifles of this caliber. But so far, the main number of such rifles has been provided by volunteers!
Rifles, scopes, and cartridges provided to the best snipers with #TeamYuri's help literally saved the best sniper groups. If we had hoped only for the state, for the president, for his ministers, for the generals he chose, all our snipers would have already been killed.
The situation with drone operators is a little better, but there were also months when everything was based on volunteers, although this was the main means of hits on the front line!
We hope for the reform of the army and the introduction of corps, but the General Staff and the Ministry of Defense should support the new corps much more. We hope for more drone supplies, for more assistance from the West. Most of all, we hope for the expansion of Special Forces combat units, this process is currently going positively, and it is this process that we have been supporting in recent months. Snipers in such units have a better chance of survival, especially if they act as our special groups. Snipers in these units are more effective. And the previous years of the war affected these snipers much less due to the higher level of general physical and psychological training.
If we do not have a normal state that would give the people a legal state, and a fighter at the front - modern command and modern support, then we, as a people, must do everything we can ourselves. Firstly, to force the authorities to implement the rule of law, and at least the authorities should not violate the autonomy of anti-corruption bodies that operate here and now, but as an element of the future rule of law. Secondly, to provide the best snipers who are still able to work effectively on the battlefield with everything they need.
Let the state provide drones, air defense, and armor for evacuation - these are now glaring needs, because it was necessary yesterday. We will concentrate on what we know how to do: win in an important small industry, in the sniper business, without state support! Because this is exactly the area where the people can win! And since we can do it - we must do it!!!
All these years we have been asking for your direct support precisely because we were aware of what our government is, what its shortcomings are, emphasizing the principle: everything that can be done directly without this government must be done! And this is exactly what has always yielded results, and today it is even more obvious how right we are.
Ukraine is a unique free people, not temporary leaders who are bad at managing both the state and the army. Support us as a people and we will win!!!
Specifically, now we want to buy a 416 caliber MRADELR and super collimators to protect against drones. We also want to help the snipers of the Third Assault Brigade - and they are also more than worthy of our help!!!
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