Nadezhda Kolesnikov was a sniper volunteer who served on the Volkhovsky front in 1943. She had 19 confirmed kills. Like Kolesnikov, 800.000 female combat soldiers served in the Russian army as tank gunners, snipers, soldiers, pilots and machine gunners. The survival rate was extremely low and among the 2000 enlisted and trained snipers, only 500 survived the war. Kolesnikov was awarded the medal of courage.
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The youngest sniper of the Russian army at 17. Kalugnina may have been the youngest but like Pavlichenko, she was one of the deadliest too notching up 257 kills on the 3rd Belorussian front. She was moved to the Leningrad front to fight for the defense of the city and remained there till the end of the war.
Ziba Ganiyeva was from Azerbaijan. She served a sniper in the Red Army’s 3rd Moscow Communist Rifle Division and was confirmed for 21 kills. As a sniper Ganiyeva was also a radio operator and a spy who crossed into enemy lines 16 times. She fought in the battle of Moscow and was heavily wounded spending 11 months in a hospital. She was awarded with the medal of the defense of Moscow, combat order of the red order and banner of the red star. Ganiyeva returned to higher studies after the war attaining a candidate of sciences degree in philology. An interesting aspect of Ganiyeva was the fact that she had also acted in films before joining the war.
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