‘It was pretty much close calls every week’

Canadian sniper dodges death in Ukraine

The fifth floor condo in Irpin, a suburb north of Kyiv, was new and well-furnished, with attractive tile floors and an espresso machine on the kitchen counter.

But the residents had wisely abandoned it and the Canadian sniper known as Wali knew there were scores of Russian soldiers nearby. He warned “Shadow,” his fellow Canadian foreign fighter, not to touch the curtains, a sure signal to the enemy they were inside and potential targets.

But the precautions were not enough. The Russians clearly had seen them enter the building and a tank crew decided to take a chance on where they were lurking.

“I saw the fireball three metres away from me,” Wali said. “It hit the structure between the windows of the apartment…. The window broke, it was a very violent explosion.”

A fierce firefight erupted and a member of the Ukrainian National Guard unit the Canadians were supporting was hit. Six of them crammed into a civilian truck they found and sped away, the wounded soldier screaming in pain with each bump in the road.

Soon after arriving in Ukraine on the heels of Russia's invasion in late February, Wali became a sort of celebrity among the foreign fighters who rushed to the country's defence.

The Canadian infantry veteran had similarly travelled to Iraq to fight ISIS and his story captivated international media , who portrayed him with some hyperbole as one of the world's greatest snipers. In a testament to his high profile, Russian disinformation peddlers later spread a false story he'd been killed in action.

But the incident in Irpin underscored how the experience was often more chaotic than poetic, an illustration of war's “terrible disappointment,” the Quebecer said in a recent interview after returning to Canada.

He and other foreign fighters were raided by a suspicious police SWAT team in Lviv. It took him some time just to find a weapon, any weapon. Then midway through his two-month stint in the war zone he picked up a whole new combat skill. Watching videos he found on Youtube, Wali taught himself how to use a Javelin antitank rocket launcher.

He did also eventually get hold of a sniper rifle, repeatedly cheated death at the hands of Russian artillery and tanks and witnessed the horrible deaths of less-lucky Ukrainian comrades.

Amid it all, he celebrated from afar his son's first birthday.

“It was pretty much close calls every week,” says Wali, a nom-de-guerre he uses for security reasons. “Modern warfare is knowing how to stay alive basically.”

Though the National Post could not independently the incidents he described, photographs and videos he provided appear to align with his story.

A veteran of the Quebecbased Royal 22 nd Regiment, Wali did two tours in Afghanistan in the specialized trade of sniper before retiring from the Canadian forces and becoming an IT consultant.

Except he didn't actually give up soldiering.

As Islamic State rampaged across Syria and Iraq, Wali travelled to northern Iraq and joined the Kurdish forces in their fight against the Islamist extremists.

Then when Russia invaded Ukraine, a friend who has a Ukrainian family and was forming a foreign-fighter unit called the Norman Brigade urged Wali to join him. Within days of the war starting, he was in the country, to the chagrin of his wife.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy eventually invited foreigners to come help defend his country, setting up a new International Legion. The organization says more than 500 Canadians have joined. But the first wave of fighters from abroad were met with a little more trepidation, and in Lviv it appears a neighbour reported Wali and the rowdy British soldiers with whom he shared a flat. Next thing he knew, a SWAT team appeared at their door, shoving Wali against the wall, apparently convinced he and the others were Russian saboteurs.

The misunderstanding was soon resolved and he moved south to meet up with Hrulf, the Norman Brigade commander.

When they had a falling out, Wali made his way to Kyiv and eventually scored a top-shelf sniper rifle, though without a range-finder. That's a crucial piece of gear for shooting far-away targets. The precise distance, temperature and wind speed are entered into a table that tells the shooter how to adjust the rifle's scope to ensure the bullet follows the intended path. Wali also lacked a spotter, the sniper's usual partner.

“If I had all the means I had in Afghanistan, it would be slaughter all day long … it would be easy.”

He decided to make the best of it, and with Shadow ended up part of a Ukrainian unit in Irpin, the suburb made infamous when Russian artillery shelled escaping civilians . The 30 of them faced a Russian force they estimated at 300 troops, backed up by tanks, helicopters and drones.

Wali says he fired just two rounds from the sniper weapon, when at one point he saw a hand move a curtain inside a building known to harbour Russian soldiers. He doesn't know if he hit anyone. The presence of refugees on the urban battlefield often made it too risky to take a shot. But when he spotted enemy positions, the information was sent to Ukrainian artillery, which bombarded the targets with their own guns.

After the Russians withdrew from the Kyiv area, he and Shadow travelled to Ukraine's Donbas region, still the centre of the conflict's fiercest fighting today.

“If I had all the means I had in Afghanistan, it would be slaughter all day long … it would be easy.” Wali Canadian sniper