Military

Ukraine’s ‘Joan of Arc’-Deadliest Female Sniper, Entrepreneur and Model

Emerald talks about how she found love and took lives on the battlefield in Ukraine. Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy

Evgenia Emerald could hear the unmistakable buzz of a drone circling lazily overhead as she lay on the ground perfectly still, buried in the deep brush of an undisclosed part of Ukraine. She quietly whispered to the reporter by her side, “It’s trying to find us.” 

Emerald, as her friends call her, knows all too well what will come next if it finds her; incoming artillery. It’s happened many times before to this seasoned though perhaps unlikely, sniper.

Newsy’s Jason Bellini met with Emerald in her blacked-out Kyiv apartment with no electricity to learn the story of Ukraine’s “lady death.” It’s a fascinating tale of lives lost, loves found, and new life yet to be. Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

It seems she was born to do this. As a young girl, she enjoyed dressing up in kid-sized Army uniforms, and her dad bought her a toy gun almost as big as she was.

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Evgenia Emerald could hear the unmistakable buzz of a drone circling lazily overhead as she lay on the ground perfectly still, buried in the deep brush of an undisclosed part of Ukraine. She quietly whispered to the reporter by her side, “It’s trying to find us.” 

Emerald, as her friends call her, knows all too well what will come next if it finds her; incoming artillery. It’s happened many times before to this seasoned though perhaps unlikely, sniper.

Newsy’s Jason Bellini met with Emerald in her blacked-out Kyiv apartment with no electricity to learn the story of Ukraine’s “lady death.” It’s a fascinating tale of lives lost, loves found, and new life yet to be. Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

It seems she was born to do this. As a young girl, she enjoyed dressing up in kid-sized Army uniforms, and her dad bought her a toy gun almost as big as she was.

Emerald as a little girl ready for action. Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

She most certainly was comfortable handling weapons as she grew up.

In this family photo, we see Ukraine’s Joan of Arc (far left) proudly gripping a shotgun. Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

In her university years, Emerald pondered a military career and excelled in a program somewhat analogous to ROTC here in the United States.

Here she is, during her college years. Throughout her life, she seemed to always have a weapon at the ready. Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

Following graduation, she chose civilian life over the armed forces and started a successful jewelry business. Yes, that is her modeling her creations in the photo below.

As it turns out, “Emerald” is just a nickname. This shot is taken from her business site. Check it out and see what she has to offer. Guys, she designs and sells some pretty cool knives as well.

Emerald continued running her business right up until a few days after the Russian invasion, when the Ukrainian Army contacted her. “Evgenia, we need you,” she recalls them saying. And that’s all it took. The unit Emerald began fighting with was almost completely made up of men. “Just me and a lot of men,” she says. She also notes that they were always respectful.

During her interview, the Newsy reporter asked her how many people she had killed, and I cringed a bit. No soldier wants to be asked that question. Emerald deflected the inquiry, stating that she never talks about that. She would, however, talk about her worst day in combat. Last spring, the Russians attacked her unit in a village north of Kharkiv and killed a number of her friends. They were just down the road ahead of her, and she could see them die. Her mentor, the man who taught her to be a sniper, died in the attack. “I cried every day after that for about two months,” she said. But that did not stop her from fighting. As she says, “I had a thirst for revenge.”. 

Emerald quickly changed the subject, stating that she really believed war was about life. How is what? Well, she found her husband because of war. On Instagram, of all places. Starlink has helped to keep Ukraine in touch with the rest of the world. In a way, Elon Musk was kind of their matchmaker. Her new love interest, Yevgeny, was serving in the artillery in a different part of Ukraine, and he took leave so he and Emerald could meet in person. They spent three days together, and she knew he was the one.

The happy couple on Instagram. Either Emerald is showing us her ring, or she is flipping us off. I think it is the former. Screenshot from Instagram and emerald.evgeniya

Just one week later after their initial meeting, Yevgeny traveled to Emerald’s unit in Zaporizhzhia to propose. She said, “yes.” Fast forward to October and a wooded area near Kharkiv. That’s where the couple was married. The date was particularly meaningful to the pair, as it was Defender’s Day, a national holiday honoring veterans and the war dead of the Ukrainian Armed Forces. It was also Yevgeny’s birthday.

A warzone wedding. The bride wore combat boots. She holds a bouquet of wheat, symbolic of her country and the staff of life.  Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

War can be an ironic thing. Just as she took lives on the battlefield, she is now giving one back. At the time she was married, Emerald was two months pregnant. She tells the story of how after their unit has been shelled all day and everyone was stressed out and exhausted, all she could think of was eating pizza. “It was then I suspected I was pregnant,” she says with a smile. After confirming her pregnancy, she continued to fight and live in the field. That was until her wedding day.

In a real way, the baby saved her life. Just two days after she left her unit, two men that she would have been fighting beside were killed by enemy fire.

These days Emerald is back home in Kyiv with her mother and her camo spray-painted Porsche Cayenne.

I don’t think she’ll be hiding from too many people with a license plate that reads “EMERALD.” Screenshot from YouTube and Newsy.

Emerald is still waiting to have her baby. She’s sleeping on a sectional couch with her mother because she’s decided to share her apartment with a family displaced by the war. Yevhenly remains with his unit.

One can only imagine the kinds of war stories she’ll have to tell her child.

A million thanks go out to reporter Jason Bellini and all the good folks at Newsy who risked their lives to help bring this story to you.

About Guy D. McCardle View All Posts

Guy D. McCardle is a sixteen-year veteran of the United States Army and most recently served as a Medical Operations Officer during OIF I and OIF II. He holds a degree in Biology from Washington & Jefferson College and is a graduate of the US Army Academy of Health Sciences. Guy has been a contributing writer to Apple News, Business Insider, International Business Times, and

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