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Despite the ease with which he did it, Skillt says the killing was never personal.
“I would never treat an enemy badly,” he says. “I have given first aid to enemies on the field. But as long as they shot at my friends, it wasn’t hard to shoot at them.”
When duty is a memory, however, soldiers can question the things they’ve done. The line between right and wrong no longer is blurred. “Work mode,” the protective cloak that shuts off the emotional hesitation to do what is necessary, no longer exists.
The stripped-away layers of humanity begin to reform. In addition to his changed attitude toward blacks, Jews and Arabs with whom he served, Skillt’s relationship with his enemies also evolved off the battlefield.
Last fall, Skillt started receiving Twitter messages from Dimitri, a separatist fighter. Dimitri had been on the opposite side of the line from Skillt in several battles in eastern Ukraine.
Casual emails eventually developed into “quite a good relationship,” Skillt says. They agreed that if they were to ever see each other in real life, however, they would try to kill each other.
Their online exchanges grew to the point that Dimitri warned Skillt of an imminent attack on Shyrokyne, the small town just outside Mariupol where Skillt was deployed. “There will be a big assault soon,” Dimitri wrote. “You should leave.”
Dimitri was killed in fighting near Mariupol, but he wasn’t the only one from the other side to reach out to Skillt. Current and former separatist fighters living throughout Europe continue to communicate with the sniper. In the emails, which The Daily Signal reviewed, they complain about their suffering in combat and how their Russian handlers have abandoned them after they returned from the war.
“It’s easier to speak to me, someone who has been in the same situation in the same battlefield, than to a friend who has never been in battle,” Skillt says, adding: "You can’t explain those things to your wife. And you can’t explain those things to civilian friends. They are disappointed, those who contact me. And they know I’ve seen the same horrible things they have."
Skillt compares his online relationships with the enemy to the “Christmas Truce” of 1914, during which French and German troops in World War I left their trenches on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to exchange gifts, sing carols and play soccer.
“It doesn’t matter if you’re Russian or Ukrainian,” he says. “Every soldier experiences the same things, no matter what side of the battle he’s on.”
