Russian snipers are utilizing Canadian rifles, regardless of sanctions | USAEMALL.com

The sniper lying prone, aiming through his riflescope, is a decorated Russian major credited with 100 kills in Ukraine.

But the gun in his hands is Canadian.

Despite sanctions banning military exports to Russia, Canadian firearms are still turning up in the country as it wages war against its neighbours.

Photos of Canadian-made rifles can be found increasingly on Russian social media channels, both with snipers and offered up for sale.

A video posted on Telegram last year shows a Russian Marine known by the call sign Yary, firing a rifle made by Cadex Defence, a company based south of Montreal.

Yary commanded a sniper brigade that killed 600 Ukrainians and received the Gold Star from President Vladimir Putin in 2023, according to Russia’s press.

He’s now an instructor at the Combat Sniping Federation, which trains sharpshooters for the Ukraine war. The federation’s Telegram account also shows the same model of Cadex rifle.

Another Russian sniper, known as Nemets, can be seen posing with a different Cadex rifle in a photo posted on Telegram six months ago.

Yet another Cadex rifle appeared on Telegram inscribed with the name of a pro-Russia volunteer unit fighting in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region.

The Russian Telegram channel Tactical Sniper Systems, meanwhile, shows a Cadex rifle it says has been modified for the “SVO,” the acronym for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

A Global Affairs Canada spokesperson suggested Russian forces may have taken weapons on the battlefield that were sent to Ukraine by Canada and other allies.

Social media posts do appear to show Ukrainian fighters with Cadex firearms, and in two online photos, Russian fighters hold what are described as captured Cadex rifles.

But a seemingly brand new Cadex rifle was displayed at the OrelExpo 2025 gun show, held in Moscow from Oct. 2 to 5, according to photos of the event. A video promoting OrelExpo featured a different Cadex model.

The website of Moscow gun dealer Varyag also features photos of what appear to be seven Cadex rifles in various colours that are for sale at its shop, still with their product tags.

Neither Varyag nor Orelexpo responded to questions.

Based at an industrial park in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu, Que., Cadex Defence has 100 employees and supplies “the best equipment to military and law enforcement units around the world,” according to its website.

But it does not export to Russia, president Serge Dextraze told Global News in interviews.

How the rifles got there is a mystery, he said. And when he saw photos of his products in Russia, he was not pleased.

“I was very upset,” he said.

So upset that he immediately began looking into it, and took action. After Global News asked him about 10 Cadex rifles with sequential serial numbers that were listed in a 2023 Russian customs document, he blacklisted the U.S. purchaser he had sold them to.

“We will not supply them anymore, it’s finished,” he said.

He suspects they were bought and sold, perhaps multiple times, before ending up with the middlemen who shipped them across the globe to Russia or one of its neighbours.

Cadex is hardly the only manufacturer whose rifles have found their way to Russia that way. Many major firearms companies are experiencing the same issue, according to exiled Russian journalist Sergey Panov.

He said that while Russian snipers are using Cadex rifles, they are not as common as American and European brands.

“Cadexes are less numerous,” said Panov, who has been investigating the flow of arms to Russia since fleeing Moscow in 2021.

“But on social media, in other open sources, we can see that there are Russian snipers that are using American, Canadian, British and Austrian rifles.”

He said foreign guns were prized by snipers in the Russian special forces, while those in regular military units tended to rely on less accurate Russian firearms.

It wouldn’t be surprising if Russians wanted Cadex rifles, long-range, high-precision guns that are the ‘Mercedes-Benz’ of their class, Dextraze said.

“So, of course, some people try to put their hands on us. But when they decide they want something, we try to stop it, and there’s not much we can do.”

He said he strictly follows federal regulations governing arms exports, and has turned down a good many would-be buyers.

He listed Libya, Algeria, Mali, Niger, Chad, Sudan, Angola and Congo as places where he has refused to sell “just because we felt it may fall into the wrong hands.”

“We serve the special operations force community for most NATO countries,” he said. “We will never sell a rifle to any country that could potentially turn against our people.”

His company also supplies the Canadian Armed Forces; in 2019, Cadex was awarded a $2-million contract for “300 monocular night vision devices,” according to a government press release.

But companies like Cadex can only do so much on their own to counter Russian sanctions evasion tactics, he said.

Looking for ideas on what more he might do, he said he had reached out to his law enforcement contacts for advice.

“And the answer I received from some people overseas: Nobody can stop the Russians to get what they want. They always find a way.”

The Ukrainian Canadian Congress said it was “a shocking revelation” that Canadian sniper guns were being used against Ukraine, and urged the government to investigate.

Canada needs to strengthen sanctions against those exporting to Russia, and dedicate more resources to enforcing existing sanctions, said CEO Ihor Michalchyshyn.

“This is yet more evidence that Canadian sanctions enforcement is lacking and ineffectual.”

Panov, who now lives in Spain, said his research for The Insider, an online investigative journalism platform, found that private firearms companies were responsible for the arms shipments to Russia.

Italy was one of the biggest transit countries, and many rifles appear to enter Russia through Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, he said.

He has not found evidence that Russia’s state security services are involved, but said that could be because of the limitations of publicly available commercial data.

For Lana Koshkareva, an activist who fled Russia and now lives in Edmonton, knowing that Canadian firearms are being used in Ukraine is hard to take.

“It’s a nightmare,” said Koshkareva, who brought several photos of Russian snipers with Canadian rifles to the attention of Global News.

She wants Canadian authorities to plug the holes in the sanctions system so it’s more challenging for the Russians to get their hands on the weapons they use in Ukraine.

This isn’t supposed to happen. Putin’s attempts to seize Ukraine prompted Canada and its international partners to cut off military and technology exports to Russia.

Global Affairs Canada spokesperson Thida Ith called the sanctions measures adopted since February 2022 “unprecedented in their scope.”

Initially, they targeted Russia’s military-industrial complex, but Ottawa expanded them on July 19, 2023, to explicitly include a ban on exporting, selling, supplying or shipping arms.

While GAC said there have been no “direct-to-Russia” exports of weapons since 2015, that is not the problem, according to Panov.

“The main loophole is resale through third countries, for which liability is either not imposed at all, or imposed too late,” he said.

“And of course, there is a complete lack of control over compliance with sanctions when the regulatory authorities cannot prove intent in the resale chain.”

Although many of the guns originate in the U.S., enforcement is rare, one exception being the June 25 conviction of a Kyrgyzstan arms dealer who exported $1.5-million worth of firearms and ammunition to Russia.

In Canada, only a single person has been charged with dodging the Russian sanctions. The RCMP arrested Toronto resident Anton Trofimov in May. His company allegedly shipped drone parts to Russia.

The Global Affairs spokesperson said Canadian exporters were responsible for validating that the end-users of their products were not under sanction.

“Obtaining signed end-user statements from clients, including a provision for being advised as soon as possible of any ongoing sales or transfers beyond the agreed-upon, end-use customer or market, as well as a mutual agreement to adhere to sanctions regulations, have become more common,” the agency said.

“Enforcing sanctions is a joint responsibility across the government of Canada, and it will not hesitate to take appropriate action should credible evidence come to light regarding the misuse of Canadian controlled goods or technology.”

A photo that appeared on social media in April showed two Russian snipers dressed in camouflage, supposedly in eastern Ukraine.

The Z symbol used by troops sent by Putin to invade Ukraine in February 2022 is visible on one of their uniforms.

The other uses the call sign Nemets. A Russian online news outlet identified him as a sniper with 19 years of experience who was in the riot police before joining the Ukraine invasion.

It said he served in the 291st Army Regiment and that his combat experience had proven invaluable in the war.

A recipient of the Order of Courage, he was part of a sniper company that helped repel a Ukrainian counteroffensive, according to the new site’s profile.

In the Telegram post, he posed surrounded by spent shell casings at a training facility in what the caption said was the “SVO zone.”

That is the term Russia uses for the area it has occupied during its so-called Special Military Operation in Ukraine.

Shown the photo, Dextraze confirmed the rifle displayed in front of Nemets was manufactured by his company, although he said it had been customized.

Cadex did not perform the modifications, Dextraze said, and he does not know how the precision rifle wound up in that part of the world.

He said his company had increased its security measures, and even held a brainstorming session, trying to come up with ways to prevent this from happening.

But at the end of the day, other than obeying export regulations, he’s not sure how a company like his can stop a determined Russian-sanctions busting campaign.

“These guys are able to get anything from anywhere,” he said.

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