Famous Canadian Sniper Wali No More Fighting in Ukraine. “I Just Shot Two Bullets While I Was On The Front”

Two months after responding to President Volodymyr Zelensk’s call to defend Ukraine, sniper Wali returned to Quebec.

“I’m lucky I’m still alive, I’m really close to death,” said a former soldier of the 22nd Royal Regiment, in an interview at his home in the Montreal metropolitan area.

His last mission in the Donbas region, in a Ukrainian unit, somewhat precipitated his return. Early in the morning, as he was sitting next to a ditch exposed to Russian tank fire, two of the recruits came out of the trenches to smoke a cigarette.

“I told them not to expose themselves like that, but they didn’t listen to me,” says Wali. A “very precise” shell fire from a Russian tank was fired on them. “It simply came to our notice then. I saw the shrapnel pass through like lasers. My body tensed. I couldn’t hear anything, my ears were ringing. It was really violent. “

He immediately understood that there was nothing more to be done for the two Ukrainian gunmen who had been hit: “It smelled dead, it’s hard to describe; it is a macabre smell of charred meat and sulfur. That smell is so inhuman. “

His partner, who wishes to remain anonymous, says he called her in the middle of the night, about an hour later. “She was trying to explain to me that there were two dead. He said, “I think I’ve done enough, haven’t I?” Have I done enough? ” I felt like he wanted me to tell him to come back. But he was calm. ”

In the end, it was family life that won over the desire to help Ukrainians, says Wali. “It simply came to my notice then. I still have the flame. I like the theater of operations. But I forced my luck. I have no injuries. I think to myself, how far can I roll the dice? I don’t want to lose what I have here “, says the young father, who missed his son’s first birthday while he was at the front.

After spending two months in Ukraine, Wali is making a “rather disappointing” assessment of the deployment of Western volunteer fighters, who have decided to defend Ukraine following a call from President Volodymyr Zelensky.

The number of volunteers who showed up, over 20,000, according to various estimates, was so high that the Ukrainian government was forced to set up the International Legion for Territorial Defense of Ukraine.

But for most of the volunteers who showed up at the border, joining a military unit was a headache: “Zelenski appealed to everyone, but on the ground, the officers did not know what to do with us.”

He and several other former Canadian soldiers initially preferred to join the Norman Brigade, a private volunteer unit based in Ukraine, run by a former Quebec soldier whose war name is Hrulf. However, the dissent quickly spread among the troops and a large number of fighters left the Brigade.

Three people who asked to remain anonymous spoke to La Presse about promises of weapons and protective equipment made by the head of the Norman Brigade that never materialized. Some of the volunteers woke up about 40 kilometers from the Russian front, without protective equipment. “If there had been a Russian discovery, everyone would have been in danger. It was an irresponsible attitude on the part of the Brigade “, says one of its former soldiers, who demanded that his name not be published, for security reasons.

The commander of the Norman Brigade confirms that he has been abandoned by about 60 fighters since the beginning of the conflict. Some of them wanted to sign a contract that would have given them the status of soldiers under the Geneva Conventions, as well as guarantees that they would be treated by the Ukrainian state in case of injury. Hrulf claims that some even “planned” to rob him of a $ 500,000 arms shipment provided by the Americans in order to create his own fighting unit.

“There are guys who rushed to the front without going through even the slightest security check. The Ukrainians tested us and only now are we starting to receive more missions. There is an element of trust that needs to be built and that is completely normal, ”says Hrulf.

“Many volunteer fighters expect everything to be turnkey, but the war is the opposite, it’s a terrible disappointment,” Wali said.

With another Quebec infantryman, nicknamed Shadow, the Quebec sniper finally joined a Ukrainian unit fighting in the Kyiv region.

But again, finding a weapon to fight with was difficult. “You had to know someone who knew someone who would tell you that in an old barber shop he would give you an AK-47. You had to struggle with the soldier’s kit like that, picking up pieces and ammunition left and right, in many cases with weapons in more or less good condition, ”he says.

“Even for meals you had to fight, often civilians provide them. It’s the same with gasoline, if you have to drive. You have to constantly organize, get to know someone who knows someone, ”says Wali.

After a few weeks on Ukrainian soil, some of the most experienced Western soldiers have been recruited by the Ukrainian Military Intelligence Directorate, and will now take part in special operations behind enemy lines, according to one of them.

Others, less experienced, “jump from one Airbnb to another” while waiting to be recruited by a unit that will lead them, says Wali.

Most, however, decided to return home, say several interviewees for this article. “Many arrive in Ukraine with their chests bulging, but leave with their tails between their legs,” says Wali.

Finally, he himself said that he fired only two bullets while on the Ukrainian front, “in the windows, to scare the people,” and that he never fell within range of the enemy.

This contradicts the Ukrainian press, which once wrote that Wali claimed 11 lives.

“It’s a machine war,” in which “extremely brave” Ukrainian soldiers suffer heavy losses from bombing, but “lose many opportunities” to weaken the enemy because they lack military technical knowledge, he said. “If the Ukrainians had the procedures we had in Afghanistan to communicate with the artillery, we could have caused a massacre,” he said.

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