The deadly art of the sniper: As Ukrainian marksman claims record assassination from 2.6 miles, some of the most incredible long-range kills, from Taliban fighter taken out from 8,120ft to five ISIS fanatics blown up when suicide vest was hit

A Ukrainian sniper claims to have smashed the record for the longest kill shot in history, with the country’s special forces saying their shooters are ‘rewriting the rules of global sniping’.

Silent assassins who keep out of sight from the frontline, snipers are guardian angels to their comrades on the battlefield – and a looming, invisible threat to enemy combatants. 

While not all shots cover as much ground as the incredible 2.36 miles Ukraine said its ‘Lord of the Horizon’ rifle achieved, sharpshooters’ high-precision kills have beaten the odds and saved countless lives during conflicts in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

The fast-paced nature of firefights means even the highest-spec technology cannot always keep pace in challenging battlefield environments, making snipers’ reconnaissance and communication skills invaluable to their battalions.

US army sniper instructor Staff Sgt. Michael Turner explained: ‘We’ve got drones, we’ve got robots, we’ve got all kinds of stuff… but we still need that real-time battlefield information that keeps soldiers safe.’

The regular breaking of records is testament to how rapidly sniper technology has been advancing in recent years, with shooters using wind meters, laser rangefinders and advanced scopes to make their kills.

Surprisingly, stunning shots have also been made using dated weapons, with a machine gun first developed in WWII used by British special forces in Afghanistan.

While snipers and their spotters work closely to estimate ranges as accurately as possible, luck also plays a role – as shown by the various examples of single bullets killing multiple enemy fighters at once.

Snipers spend years learning their craft, honing their shooting skills into a deadly and precise science which takes into account everything from temperature to humidity and even the curvature and rotation of the earth. 

Low temperatures and high altitudes result in thinner air, which results in less drag on the bullet and therefore less bullet drop. Low humidity, too, can result in denser air, which tends to drag the bullet down faster. 

Ultimately, success comes down to the skill of the shooter, with tiny margins of less than a millimetre making the difference between their bullet hitting a wall, their own troops, or someone who is trying to kill them.

Here, MailOnline takes a look at the longest, most destructive and most dramatic sniper kill shots in modern warfare.

The Canadian sharpshooter who took out an ISIS fanatic from 2.19 miles away as fighter attacked Iraqi soldiers

Before Ukraine claimed that one of its soldiers had executed a staggering 12,467ft kill shot, a Canadian sniper held the record for the greatest distance.

Operating in Iraq in 2017, the unnamed killer from the elite Joint Task Force 2 is said to have taken out an ISIS fighter from 11,614ft away.

The bullet was fired from a McMillan TAC-50 rifle set on a high-rise tower and took 10 seconds to travel roughly 2.19 miles through the air before hitting the fighter, who was attacking Iraqi soldiers.

The shot is thought to have been caught on film by a Predator drone circling overhead at the time.

A report by news site SOFREP said the kill took place in Mosul, and that the shooter and his team had recently trained in long-range sniping.

They had been firing at increasing distances over the city for several days leading up to the record-breaking kill.

Moments after, a second shot by the same sniper at a slightly shorter distance missed its target, the site reported.

A military source told Canada’s Globe and Mail at the time that the successful precision shot negated the need to drop a bomb – which could have had catastrophic consequences, potentially killing civilians in the area.

‘It is a very precise application of force and because it was so far way, the bad guys didn’t have a clue what was happening,’ they said.

The shot was made over such a distance, they added, that the shooter must have had to account for the changeability in the ballistics of the round, which are affected by time and distance.

They would have also had to adjust for wind, which an expert suggested could have been high in this case.

‘You have to adjust for him firing from a higher location downward and as the round drops you have to account for that. And from that distance you actually have to account for the curvature of the Earth.’

Despite only having a small army, Canada is known for producing some of the world’s best snipers.

‘It is not just a sniper. They work in pairs. There is an observer,’ a military source told Globe and Mail. ‘This is a skill set that only a very few people have.’

The deadly efficiency of Canadian shooters goes back to the First and Second World Wars, according to Canadian military historian Mark Zuehlke.

‘The best snipers were usually country boys who knew how to hunt,’ Zuehlke told CBC. ‘They knew how to handle a gun and handle a gun well.’ 

The Cavalry corporal who carried out the longest kill shot by a British sniper in history in Afghanistan

Setting the world record at the time, Corporal of Horse (CoH) in the Blues and Royals, Sgt Craig Harrison, executed what remains the longest kill shot in British military history when he took out two Taliban assassins.

It was November 2009 when he fired the shot from a range of 8,120ft – around 3,000ft beyond his rifle’s effective range.

Sgt. Harrison told how he felt compelled to take the shot while fighting in Musa Qala, Helmand Province, when a patrol he was part of came under fire from Taliban fighters.

During a three-hour shooting match, he recalled seeing his friends get stuck in a gulley under heavy fire from a Taliban machine gun.

His target was far outside range of his gun, a L115A3 Long Range Rifle, but Sgt Harrison decided the good conditions gave him a chance.

With good visibility, wind and weather conditions, he carried out nine shots alongside his spotter to range the target, using the ‘bracketing method’ – estimating shortest and longest possible distance and then works out the average.

His successful hit helped save the eight men who were at risk of being wounded or killed if he did nothing.

Afghan National Police confirmed he had killed two Taliban fighters when they visited the site of the shooting shortly afterwards to retrieve the militants’ weapons, which had been taken by fleeing fighters.

The record distance of the shot was then confirmed by an Apache helicopter, which hovered over the firing position, using its laser range finder to measure the distance from it to the target.

The perfect snipe was not the only dramatic thing to happen during to Sgt Harrison during his deployment; on the same tour a bullet went through his helmet, almost killing him.

Just 10 days later, his Jackal vehicle was blown up by a mine, which he again survived. He was reportedly only told of his record-breaking feet on his return home.

The Canadian marksman who saved US soldiers’ lives when he took out al-Qaeda fighters in 2002

Another Canadian shooter secured a record back in 2002, which he held until 2009.

As a young soldier who had honed his craft while stationed in Bosnia, Corporal Rob Furlong brought his skills to the field in Afghanistan.

Operating alongside another shooter, Furlong used a Vector, a binocular-like device that uses a laser to pinpoint targets miles away.

It told him target – three men believed to have been al-Qaeda fighters – was exactly exactly 7,972ft away. 

The group was lugging weapons to al-Qaeda mortar nest high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, Macleans reported in 2006.

Cpl Furlong and his comrade agreed to take out the biggest threat first – man in the middle carrying the RPK machine gun.

He missed twice, and said the reason he only hit the terrorist’s backpack the second time is because he squeezed the trigger a fraction of a millimetre to one side, so rectified it the third time. 

Third time lucky, his miraculous shot saved American soldiers’ lives and meant Cpt Furlong made a name for himself, tallying an unprecedented body count.

‘Thank God the Canadians were there,’ one American soldier said in the aftermath of the gunfight.

His shot beat a record set just a few days before by another Canadian, former master Corporal Aaron Perry, who shot an insurgent from a distance of around 7,500ft.

SAS sniper who wiped out five ISIS fighters with a single bullet during 2020 campaign in Syria

An SAS sniper is said to have used one of the Army’s most powerful rifles to kill five bomb-making ISIS fighters with a single shot while serving in Syria in 2020.

The SAS troops are understood to have been working with Kurdish fighters to track down an ISIS unit responsible for attacking Syrian villages, The Sun reports.

The team had spent several days carrying out reconnaissance at a suspected ISIS bomb factory before they saw their targets emerge.

The marksman engaged the target and hit the jihadist in the chest, inadvertently exploding his suicide vest. 

The bomb blast killed the target and four other IS fighters, including a top jihadist commander.

The soldier is said to have planned to take out suicide bomber, followed by the ISIS commander before he ‘got lucky’ and took them all out at once. 

‘He waited for the target to drop but instead the guy exploded,’ a source said at the time.

The sniper, a sergeant with 20 years’ experience, was given a baseball cap which read ‘Long Range Death’ as a reward for his shot.

The incredible shot had echoes of another record held by a British sniper who killed six Taliban fighters with a single bullet – again after it hit the trigger switch of a suicide vest he was wearing.

The 20-year-old Lance Corporal, of the Coldstream Guards, pulled off the stunning shot in Kakaran, southern Afghanistan, in December 2013.

The unnamed soldier’s shot travelled a relatively modest 2,800ft to reach its target.

The same shooter was no stranger to impressive shots, and had previously taken out a Taliban fighter at 4,400ft.

The Ukrainian sniper who caught his long-distance kill on camera in 2022

Ukraine’s latest record, if confirmed, would top a kill executed by one of its snipers  last year, which is currently third in the rankings.

An unnamed shooter felled a Russian soldier at a distance of 8,890ft– around 1.7miles – according to Ukraine’s military.

It published dramatic footage which it claimed showed the view down the sniper’s scope as the shot was taken with Ukrainian Snipex Alligator rifle.

The footage shows an image of a man moving among trees before the shooter centres their crosshair on his chest. 

The thermal sight was seen jumping upwards, indicating the rifle has been fired, before the figure dropped to the ground around three seconds later.

A second figure then came running over in an apparent attempt to help his wounded comrade, before the sniper fired a second time. Both figures then slumped to the ground.

Weapons fanatics refer to the Alligator as a ‘beast’ of the battleground – with the huge weapon reaching six feet, six inches in length when fully assembled.

It entered service with Ukrainian special operations forces in 2021, just in time for Russia’s bloody invasion.

According to Ukraine’s military, the weapon can penetrate a 10mm armor plate from a single shot around 4,500ft away. 

A US sniper’s longest kill that took out Iraqi insurgent in 2004

Weapon: Barrett .50

Distance: 7,546 feet (1.42 miles)

Time: Unknown

The longest kill from a US sniper was done by sergeant Bryan Kremer, who hit an Iraqi insurgent at 7,546 feat (1.42 miles) with his Barrett M82A1 rifle in 2004. 

The .50 calibre M82 is a semi-automatic  rifle which is used by numerous armies around the world. The M82A1, which was used in this case, is an improved version of the weapon which was introduced in 1986.

British soldier who used a machine gun  to carry out ‘the best long-range shot in SAS history’

A British sniper gunned down a jihadi from almost 1.5 miles away in what was reportedly the best long-range shot in the history of the SAS.

The sergeant killed the Islamic State commander, who was on a British and US kill list, with a .50 Calibre machine gun, shooting him in the chest. 

The feat is believed to be the first time the machine gun has been used for a sniper hit by the SAS.

The Islamist’s arm and shoulder were torn off due to the force of the bullet and he died instantly.

The sniper used an M2 Browning heavy machine gun, popularly known as ‘Ma Deuce’, a weapon which has been in service since WWII. 

A special sight was fitted on the gun and a spotter then estimated wind speed. 

The gunman also had to take into account the heat of the day and the light. 

‘The image of his target was quite ‘watery’ because of the heat being given off from the ground,’ a source told The Daily Star.

The IS fighter had been briefing his men when he was shot: ‘It took several seconds for the round to hit the commander who appeared to fly into several pieces. 

‘For a few seconds no-one moved. When they realised what had happened they got up and ran away.’

The gun was reportedly decommissioned and displayed in the unit’s Hereford headquarters as a memento.