Free Fall: A Sniper's Story from Chechnya Quotes

“Usually the Arabs wore boots produced in the West with high-quality materials, and every infantryman dreamed of having at least one pair.”

“Never call me "Senior Lieutenant Sir" again, is that clear? From now on, you’re saboteurs. We don't have ranks, just names, remember that. So I'm "Comrade Zabelin" to you.”

“We haven’t got offices or secretaries, so everyone’s his own secretary around here. We’re saboteurs, a mobile unit. Today we’re in one place, tomorrow in another. We’re independent, get it?”

“[...] on another channel the President spoke like a genuine criminal, openly threatening anyone who got in his way but at the same time so charismatic and reasonable that even I wanted to applaud his speeches...”

“Among the saboteurs, on the other hand, hazing didn’t exist. We were like brothers, because each of us knew that in hard times it’s always better to have a brother by your side than an enemy.”

“Even if keeping the enemy’s weapons was prohibited by Russian military law, we didn’t care. As our captain would always say:
‘If they want us to play their game, then they can at least let us use the toys we want!’”

“If Free Fall were a novel, it would be just a plot-free Russian version of Andy McNab. But, marketed as a memoir, Canongate can say that it "offers a unique perspective on one of the most controversial wars in living memory".”

“His works ("Free Fall: A Sniper’s Story" and "Siberian Education") are truly impressive for their triteness and the sheer quantity of outright lies, nevertheless, this man is a favorite among some Western readers in Europe and the United Kingdom.”

“We saboteurs had an unusual uniform; we wore civilian clothes, things from home. As we would be conducting missions behind the front lines, travelling through territory under enemy control, it was essential that we be able to pass unrecognised.”

“Even today, I often find myself observing open spaces and thinking how perfect they would be for a military operation. Where a normal person sees a landscape and contemplates the beauty of nature, I realise that, against my will, I am figuring out where the machine gun should go.”

“Needless to say, Lilin has never set foot in Chechnya [...], but, following in the footsteps of Baron Munchhausen, this does not stop him spouting a load of exorbitant cock-and-bull stories – and everyone, at least nearly everyone, laps them up!”

“[...] it contains tales so unlikely that most editors would surely have spotted them as false, such as when Lilin finds a Chechen with a rifle loaded with hyper-accurate bullets filled with liquid mercury. Such an idea is nonsense since the liquid would shift in flight and render them useless.”

“I had a head start; in addition to the target shooting I did in a city sports team, I had lots of hunting experience in Siberia with my grandfather Nikolay. Whenever I went to visit my grandfather, even when I was still just a kid, my father often let me shoot his Kalashnikov.”

“We saboteurs all had complete faith in our captain, because his unit was the only one in which nobody had died since it had been formed. We felt protected, which was crucial in war because, as Nosov often said:
‘The soldier who feels defenceless is already halfway dead.’”

“As soon as I stepped off the train I took a walk around my home town, and I realised that I had an inexplicable impulse to shoot everyone I saw on the street. I felt a lethal charge of hatred: it was eating me up inside, making me scorn everything that represented peaceful life.”

“This book is a story constructed with true details, a distorted reflection of the reality that we experienced.
That is, I changed the names of characters and units to protect those involved; I omitted place names and also blurred the times when the events narrated here actually took place.
N.L.”

“Other soldiers were always obliged to follow the orders given by any higher-ranking official, whereas we never were. This is why we’d clashed with the officers of other divisions many times, especially the younger ones who would give us orders that we never obeyed. Our freedom from military hierarchy wasn’t liked by anyone.”

“[...] I reflected at length on how stupid we’d been, we Russians, over the course of history. For centuries we had pursued various political ideas – often going against the natural laws of humanity – only because we weren’t able to get out of the system, which kept us trapped inside a constantly shrinking circle.”

“The enemy’s bayonets and knives were almost always American, and when we could we took them for ourselves. We liked those weapons a lot because they were useful and easy to handle, whereas the Russian bayonet seemed like a sort of universal tool you could use for anything – even plumbing, if you wanted – except close combat.”

“Among the terrorists, besides an unbelievable number of Russian-made firearms, like Makarov 9s, Stechkins and Tokarev 7.62s, European or American guns were always going around, generally ACP 45s, PARA 9s or 9x21s. I myself took a 9x21-calibre 98 Beretta FS from a dead man’s body, a beautiful, very handy weapon, more precise and secure than Russian pistols.”