
A Ukrainian soldier with the call-sign "Zver," shown here kissing his rifle, is quoted as saying "Thanks my little toy, that you didn't let me down."
Readers of our daily battle reports know that fighting has been fierce in particular in and around the industrial zone ("promzona") near Avdeyevka (Avdiivka). Practically every day, there are descriptions also of snipers active along the towns of the front line, often causing the deaths of Ukrainian soldiers.
Gordonua.com reports that on the evening of March 9, the tables turned when a young Ukrainian contract soldier shot to death a sniper near the Avdeyevka industrial zone who turned out to be a Russian citizen, and an officer of Russian military intelligence, according to a post from the 72nd Guard Separate Mechanized Brigade on Facebook.
"Coal miners don't make cards like that," another Ukrainian soldier, whose call sign was "Khan" was quoted as saying in the 72nd Guard's post.
"As much as we've been fighting, we don't draw cards so perfectly as those firing cards were drawn," he added.
Russian President Vladimir Putin once declared that there were no Russian soldiers fighting in Ukraine, that there were only local separatist "coal-miners and truck-drivers".
-- Catherine A. Fitzpatrick