New images show an elite sniper who killed more than 40 people but was captured by Ukrainians in a heavy blow to Vladimir Putin.
Irina Starikova, 41, is codenamed Bagheera, after Rudyard Kipling’s black panther in The Jungle Book, but there have been misleading reports as to her true identity.
She is shown in new images relaxing between her “kills.”
An elite Russian sniper who has killed more than 40 people but is now being captured by Ukrainians is seen relaxing between her kills in new images (second right).
Irina Starikova, 41, is codenamed Bagheera, after Rudyard Kipling’s black panther in The Jungle Book
The mother of two was found wounded in a battlefield in Ukraine, but she is not from Serbia, some reports say, nor was she a nun-turned-sniper.
Similar identities explain the confusion.
The captured sniper is originally from Donetsk and has two daughters – Valeria, 11, and Yulia, nine.
Her fate is now in Ukrainian hands, but what happened to her is unknown as it is claimed she had “the blood of at least 40 people, including civilians”.
The mother of two was found wounded in a battlefield in Ukraine, but she is not from Serbia, some reports say
The captured sniper is originally from Donetsk and has two daughters – Valeria, 11, and Yulia, nine
Anyone “who kills peaceful people on our land can expect retaliation,” the Kiev military said.
There are claims that she was found abandoned by her Russian protectors.
“Knowing that I was injured and having the opportunity to come and pick me up, they just decided to leave me there hoping I would die,” she is quoted as saying.
In a scathing critique of Russian war tactics, she said, “You failed me.”
She married fighter Alexandr – codename Gorynych, from Belarus – after meeting near the village of Schastye.
Her fate is now in Ukrainian hands, but what happened to her is unknown as it is claimed she has “the blood of at least 40 people on her hands, including civilians”.
The 40-kill sniper was reportedly captured in Ukraine after being wounded in a battle with Kyiv
The Ukrainian Armed Forces released photos of Starikova (pictured) after she was captured
Soviet Russia famously used female snipers during World War II, while other countries preferred to confine women to factories or farming.
The most successful, Lyudmila Pavlichenko, was born near Kyiv and had 309 confirmed kills, earning her the nickname “Lady Death”.
A wound in 1942 ended her active service and she became a celebrity and propagandist for the regime.
Most of the snipers were graduates of the Central Women’s School for Sniper Training near Moscow, commanded by female veterans of the Spanish Civil War. The combined efforts of the instructors and graduates are believed to have defeated 12,000 German troops during the war.
Another Russian sniper, Yelizaveta Mironov, was only 17 when Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
Local media claimed the sniper, who is said to be a mother of two and divorced, was responsible for the “killing of 40 Ukrainians, including civilians.”
Starikova (left) has served with the Russian-backed separatists in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine since 2014
Born in Moscow, she had just graduated from high school when she volunteered for the Red Army. Mironov fought in the Sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol and had at least 34 kills to her name, although some sources claim she had more than 100.
Her comrades were particularly impressed by her exploits during five days of fierce fighting at Goryachiy Klyuch in October 1942, when the teenager is said to have killed more than 20 Germans. But she was badly injured in the battle for Novorossiysk and died at the age of only 19.
Around 800,000 women served in the Soviet Union during the war, including roles such as pilots and machine gunners.
The activities of Soviet women fighters were also documented by Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich in her 1985 book The Unwomanly Face of War.