He saw death up close in the suburbs of kyiv, but it was the fear of being forgotten by his son that brought him back to Canada. Now the Canadian sniper is back in Ukraine, but his role will be different

They even said he was killed in action. He was one of the first foreigners to answer the call of Volodymyr Zelensky, at the beginning of the Russian invasion. He helped break the siege of kyiv, lost comrades and saw death up close. He returned to the arms of his wife and the baby. Today, the Canadian sniper known only as Wali is back on Ukrainian soil, but now his mission is different, but no less important.

After those first freezing days of March in the ravaged suburb of Irpin, where he and other foreign volunteers halted Russian attempts to encircle the capital, Wali could not resist. The love for his son, whom he left behind when he was only a few months old, forced him to return to Canada. Over the past few weeks, during the few video calls he made in Canada, he noticed that his son was starting to forget about him.

“I felt it during video calls. So I started imagining what it would be like if I died in battle. My son would no longer know me. I would become a story they would tell you. I would be that father who once left for Ukraine and never came back. El País newspaper🇧🇷

He is now back in Ukraine, but his role will be different. He began planning his return in June, and in mid-September returned to command and train a group of snipers.

The shooter explains that the scenario observed in Ukraine is already very different, especially at the level of military organization. Everything is planned to the millimeter, he assures. From theft, to the person who will pick you up, to the secret and protected route and led by a collaborator. Everything is done with the utmost professionalism. Arriving in Lviv, he receives an accreditation that allows him to distinguish himself at the various checkpoints that exist on Ukrainian roads.

“I am back in Ukraine for the next offensive operations. The exact definition of my new tasks will be clarified in the coming days and could be extended beyond issues related to snipers,” he told the Spanish newspaper on September 19.

The experienced soldier believes that Ukraine suffers from not having enough war professionals, although this deficiency has been filled by the abundance of courage in the country. Still, Wali stresses: “Ukraine needs long-term support, both militarily and economically. For me, this means helping to improve the professionalism of the Ukrainian Armed Forces.

The scene now is very different from when it arrived. In the first days of March, no one really knew where the Russian troops were and what territories they had already conquered. Many came to believe that kyiv was about to fall. The mission of Wali and the other foreign volunteers was clear: to defend the capital at all costs and to prevent the advance of the Russian paratroopers who were trying to decapitate the Ukrainian leaders.

The situation is now much more favorable for Ukraine, which has proven that it has more capabilities than it was given and has already regained a large part of the territory lost in the first days of the conflict, especially in the north , in kyiv, Sumy and Chernihiv, and more recently, in the province of Kharkiv. But that’s not all that has changed: for Wali, Ukraine is already one of the countries with the best snipers in the world.

Vladimir Putin responded by announcing the deployment of 300,000 Russian soldiers, while the decree guaranteeing its legality allows the Kremlin to bring millions of citizens into battle. But Ukraine is not afraid of this mobilization, explains Wali.

“Putin has lost his weapons. Your best weapons and your best soldiers. This massive mobilization is a major challenge. But from experience, producing soldiers capable of waging war takes time. Ukraine is several months ahead of him,” said the Canadian volunteer.

The only certainty of this strategy is that it will result in more deaths on the battlefields. This is why Wali insists that the key to a Ukrainian victory is the quality, not the quantity, of Ukrainian soldiers. And this is where Wali himself comes into play.