Vasily Zaytsev

"On the whole I liquidated 242 Nazis in Stalingrad. My friends and pupils also eliminated many of them. I had trained 30 snipers who killed 1,126 Nazis during the war."

- Vasily Zaytsev

Vasily Zaytsev was a Soviet sniper during the Battle of Stalingrad in the Second World War who earned the title Hero of the Soviet Union as a result of his prowess on the battlefield. He was an experienced marksman as a result of hunting deer and wolves in his childhood in the Ural Mountains, earning his first kill at the age of twelve, using one shot to kill a wolf with a rifle he could barely carry. Over the course of his career he killed 225 soldiers during the Battle of Stalingrad alone and an approximated 400 more between October 1942 and January 1943. Zaytsev pioneered new tactics for mobile sniping, so as to ensure that once a few enemies were killed his location could not be pinpointed - he would hide under rubble or even in water pipes to remain concealed before reloacting after every few shots. Despite temporarily losing his sight to a mortar round that exploded in his face, Zaytsev was able to recover (and regain his sight) in time to participate in the Battle of Seelow Heights in April of 1945, earning the rank of Captain in the process.