Nina Lobkovskaya


Nina Alexeyevna Lobkovskaya served as a sniper for the Red Army and attained the rank of Lieutenant in a separate sniper unit of the 3rd Shock Army during World War II. In the war she reached 89 confirmed kills, making her the tenth deadliest female sniper in the war.

Early life

She was born the eldest of five children in Siberia. Her family moved to Stalinabad in the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic following the ill health of her father Alexei who had enlisted in the Red Army in 1942 before being killed in the battle for Voronezh in October of the same year. While the Second World War was not fought in Tajikistan itself, after the arrival of numerous refugees from the war to the Tajik SSR Lobkovskaya took the impact of the war to heart and volunteered for the military after graduating from school under the advice of the Komsomol.

Training and service

Lobkovskaya was one of 300 women sent to Veshnyaki in Eastern Russia to train as snipers at the Central Women’s Sniper Training School. From February 1945 until the end of the war, Lobkovskaya commanded a company of female snipers who eventually saw action in the Battle of Berlin. On one night while defending a section of road the unit assisted in the capture of 27 enemy combatants. During the war she reached 89 confirmed kills of enemy combatants, having fought on the Baltic and Belarusian Fronts.

Awards and Honors