80 Years Ago, The First Female Snipers in Combat Were Erased From History. On the Cusp of VE Day & Mother’s Day, it’s time to amend the historical record.
Nina Petrova, a 48 year-old grandmother-sniper, proved that age is an attitude not a barrier.
Nina Petrova had a tally of 112 by the end of WWII; she was 51 years old.
It’s less than a week until the 80th Anniversary of Victory in Europe Day (VE Day), when Germany officially surrendered after the Red Army stormed into Berlin. Although WWII’s western front has been well documented, there is a lesser-known yet just-as-important story behind this narrative: the 2,500 female snipers who fought on the eastern front. Just 500 of these women survived and, when they were demobilised, they were told not to talk about their achievements but instead, to return home to their most important role, motherhood.
As the author of historical fiction, I look to the past for empowering, unsung women who’ve changed history. When I came across these women, who lost their spot in history, I knew I had a compelling story. Then, as I was researching female snipers for The Night Sparrow, I became enthralled by Starshina (Sergeant Major) Nina Petrova, a mother and grandmother whose first combat experience took place in 1939, during the Soviet-Finnish War, when she was a 46 year-old commander.
Two years later, Petrova, a longtime shooting instructor within the Red Army, volunteered for the Great Patriotic War (WWII) as a sniper of the 284th Infantry Regiment. Petrova was 48 years-old, a single mother and a grandmother, yet she didn’t hesitate to go into combat, where she killed 122 German soldiers and, during the Battle of Leningrad, trained 500 snipers while on the front!
One of five children, Petrova was raised by her mother after her father died. She took full advantage of the unprecedented lack of gender stereotypes in Russia, graduating from trade school, working as an accountant, and then as a gym teacher. Her passion for sports—hockey, basketball, skiing, cycling, rowing, and sharpshooting—strengthened her physical fitness, resilience, and temperament, characteristics that helped her become a certified sniper instructor as well as a highly proficient sniper. In a Leningrad sniper training camp, she won first place in a shooting competition.
For her extraordinary achievements, she received two momentous awards, but her age is what caught the eye of General Ivan Fedyuninsky: “The award list indicated that Petrova was 52 years old. I did not want to believe my eyes: is she more than fifty years old?”
In ‘War History Online’ (Oct. 2, 2018), Ruslan Budnik takes a close look at Nina’s prowess as a sniper : “On January 16, 1944, near the village of Zarudiny, Nina destroyed two German signalmen. When her position was discovered, she successfully changed her position under heavy fire and killed another three German soldiers….In February 1945, Nina was in the 2nd Belorussian Front. She took part in battles for the city of Elbing, covering the attacking infantry with sniper fire and suppressing German firing points. In these battles, Nina killed 32 German soldiers, bringing her total score to 100 killed.”Nina went on to kill 22 more Germans, but her growing exhaustion is evident in the letter she wrote to her daughter:
My dear, dear daughter! I am tired of fighting, baby, because it is already the fourth year at the front. Would rather end this damned war and return home. How I want to hug you, kiss my dear granddaughter! Maybe we will live to see this happy day…
Sadly, Nina did not live to hug her granddaughter. On May 1, 1945, she was a passenger in a car that crashed in Nazi-occupied Poland. Because of poor visibility, the driver lost control and the car drove off a bridge. Nina died immediately, with a final tally of 122 German soldiers. She was 51 years old.
Petrova’s story is particularly relevant today, in 2025, with the recent and shocking erasure of US military web pages that honor women—’Women in Army History’ and ‘Navy Women of Courage and Intelligence’. The deletion of Petrova, and the rest of the Soviet female snipers’ narratives led to a skewed, male-only version of history, as well as a false recounting of events. In A History of Warfare, the eminent UK historian, John Keegan writes, “(women) rarely fight among themselves and they never in any military sense fight men…” Keegan wrote these words in 1994, 49 years after VE Day, 49 years after the surviving female snipers were demobilised, with a final tally of 11,000.
I am saddened and shocked by the news that Nina died in such ordinary circumstances. Telling them to go home and continue to be mothers is also a horrendous indignity. They have robbed them of their achievements- and generations later of pride and inspiration for their own fighters. What stupid people! And as for the US, in 2025- I expect better! America is not so great again. What losers. Thanks for expressing your voice in this story!!