Special sharpshooter units are being formed in Russia’s ground forces brigades, Defense Ministry spokesman Lt. Col. Sergey Vlasov said on Friday, October 7.

The sniper units have already been set up in the ground forces and now they are being manned. “We are establishing a phased, multi-tiered system for selecting and training candidates, to teach them how to work as part of a unit and independently. All snipers will have special training once every three or four years,” Vlasov said.

“Sniper units will be equipped with a number of different rifles with different characteristics,” he said.

They will also have special target acquisition equipment, including portable lasers, binoculars and devices for computing ballistics data, RIA Novosti reported.