By Blake Stilwell
When a military sniper makes an accurate shot from an extremely long distance, they need more than a spotter and a rangefinder. They need to take into account things such as wind direction, wind speed, air density and even the Earth’s rotation. Amid all that, they might be making those calculations while enemy troops are actively trying to find and kill them.
As if all that wasn’t impressive enough, the top five longest-distance confirmed sniper kills all came from shots fired at more than a mile away, with the top two coming in from more than two miles away. Since the average human with an unobstructed view can only see 2.9 miles before the curvature of the Earth cuts off their view, there’s a good chance the enemy neither saw nor heard the bullet coming.
The top five spots on the list of longest-distance sniper kills went largely unchanged starting in 2017, until Russia gave Ukrainian snipers the opportunity to join the list — which they did. Twice. Here’s the latest.
1. Viacheslav Kovalskyi, Ukraine: 2.36 Miles
While other shooters on this list go unnamed, 58-year-old Viacheslav Kovalskyi is proud to be known for dropping a Russian officer. An award-winning, long-distance competitive shooter before the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, he signed up as a sniper that very same day. He joined the counterintelligence agency of Ukraine’s Security Service and topped this list with a shot in the Kherson region in November 2023.
Video evidence confirmed that a custom-made round from Kovalskyi’s Horizon’s Lord anti-materiel rifle connected with a Russian officer 3,800 meters — or 2.36 miles — away. The bullet took nine seconds to close the distance with the Russian. After the target doubled over and fell, the other troops scattered.
“I was thinking that Russians would now know that is what Ukrainians are capable of,” Kovalskyi told The Wall Street Journal. “Let them sit at home and be afraid.”
2. Unnamed Canadian Sniper, Iraq: 2.19 Miles
Canadians might be known for being overly polite, but there’s nothing polite about their shooting skills. Three Canadians have held the top spot on the list of long-distance sniper kills in recent years, but the other two were publicly known. The operators in Canada’s Joint Task Force 2 are the most elite of our northern neighbor’s special operations forces, and this shooter’s identity (along with most details of the incident) are still a guarded secret.
Using a .50-caliber McMillan TAC-50 anti-materiel rifle, the JTF-2 sniper posted up in a high-rise building in an undisclosed Iraqi city in 2017. He took aim at an Islamic State fighter attacking Iraqi security forces who couldn’t be supported by air strikes due to the proximity of civilians. He then dropped the ISIS fighter from 3,540 meters with a shot verified by video evidence, according to the Globe and Mail.
3. Unnamed Australian Sniper, Afghanistan: 1.74 Miles
In their book, “One Shot Kills: A History of Australian Army Sniping,” authors Glenn Wahlert and Russell Linwood detail the story of an Australian soldier with the 2nd Commando Regiment whose record kill at the time of the book’s publication in 2014 held the world record for the longest-distance hit at 2,815 meters.
The sniper was one member of two teams in the Kajaki district of Afghanistan’s Helmand Province in April 2012. The first team consisted of two privates, one spotter and one shooter while the second had a lance corporal on the rifle and the corporal spotting. The commandos’ commander was also spotting with both teams. The gunman used a Barrett M82A1 anti-materiel rifle with a Schmidt and Bender scope and Woods reticle. All three spotters confirmed the shot hit. It was a world record for the longest-distance hit, one that held for the next five years.
4. Unnamed Ukrainian Sniper, Ukraine: 1.68 Miles
Russia intended for its invasion of Ukraine to last a total of three days, but the war continues even more than two years later. By November 2022, Russia was forced to call up its reserves to blunt Ukrainian counteroffensives in the regions around Kharkiv and Kherson due to the more than 100,000 casualties sustained by the Russian army.
If that wasn’t enough to boost Ukrainian morale, a special operations soldier of the Ukrainian National Guard hit a Russian “occupier” from 2,710 meters away, securing the No. 2 spot on the list of longest-distance sniper kills at the time. The sniper used a XADO Snipex Alligator, a specially designed, anti-materiel rifle with a claimed effective range of 2,000 meters, made in Ukraine.
5. Cpl. Craig Harrison, Afghanistan: 1.53 Miles
It’s not a great idea to release the name of a world record-setting sniper, as Craig Harrison will attest. The British Army named him against his wishes, which led to death threats against him and his family. He also struggled with PTSD after serving as a sniper in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. But when he set the world record for the longest-distance sniper kill, he was providing overwatch for British forces in Afghanistan.
His record-setting shots came in 2009, on a clear, mild day with little wind. He was using an Accuracy International L115A3 against two Taliban machine gunners in Helmand Province. After ranging the targets, he took them out with two sequential shots.
