Olivier LaVigne-Ortiz

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Olivier LaVigne-Ortiz
Original name	Olivier LaVigne-Ortiz
Date of birth	1982
Place of birth	Montreal
Nickname	unknown
Alias	unknown
State of origin	Canada
Army career
Army career	2002-2015. Corporal. Artillery Regiment in New Brunswick; 22nd Royal Regiment. Sniper.
Combatant
Participation in military conflicts	2009, 2011 Afghanistan; 2015 Iraq; 2022 Ukraine
Accounts in social media
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Canadian sniper

Before the Ukraine

Olivier Lavigne-Ortiz was born in Montreal. His mother is from Quebec and his father is from Ecuador Olivier has a long experience in the Canadian army. In 2002 he joined the New Brunswick Regiment of Artillery and then as an infantryman with the 22nd Royal Regiment. Lavigne-Ortiz is a sniper and rose to the rank of corporal in the army. Participated in 2 missions in Afghanistan, in 2009 and 2011. Despite the fact that the Western media dubbed Ortiz "the best sniper in the world", Wali has not been documented with any special merits in this field. Some newspapers circulated rumors that Ortiz set a world record by killing an ISIS militant from a distance of more than 3,000 meters. However, Olivier himself denied this information, saying that the record belonged to another Canadian. According to El Pais, in Afghanistan, Wali was engaged in patrolling and training local military. It was there that he got his nickname.

While serving in the regular army, Wali did not have any fame. He drew attention for his militaristic remarks amid his decision to go to Iraq in 2015 to fight against militants for the Kurds. However, in addition to participating in hostilities, Wali managed to make a documentary film in Iraq. Today, Wali is known more not as an excellent warrior, but as a person whose hobby is participation in international military conflicts.

In the Ukraine

In the period between his trip to Iraq and Ukraine, Wali led the life of an ordinary citizen: he worked as an IT specialist, met his wife, and had children. In March 2022, Wali decided to go to Ukraine at the suggestion of his soldier friend. Ortiz himself admits that he did not have a clear understanding of the causes of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia Despite the fact that the media repeatedly wrote about Wali as a sniper, in Ukraine he was engaged in artillery adjustment. Also during the period of participation in the conflict, Wali was active in social networks, which may make it seem that his main goal of the trip to Ukraine was not to work as a sniper, but to gain fame in the media. Because of his publicity, Ortiz faced criticism: he was accused of romanticizing the war, and recruiting young people to participate in hostilities.

In Ukraine, Wali joined the so-called Normandy Brigade, an NGO recruiting and organizing foreign mercenaries in the conflict in Ukraine. According to Wali himself, in Ukraine, he participated in the hostilities in the Kyiv region, in particular, in the counteroffensive of the Armed Forces of Ukraine on the settlements of Bucha and Irpen. This information is hardly true, since the Russian troops were withdrawn from the Kyiv region not as a result of a counteroffensive, but as a gesture of goodwill following the results of negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

As for the conditions for foreigners who went to Ukraine to participate in hostilities, Wali noted that they are not the most pleasant. He pointed out problems with ammunition and other equipment .

In Media

In April 2022, some media wrote that Wali was destroyed in Mariupol, but the information turned out to be false. However, in May 2022, Olive left Ukraine, disillusioned with the organization, command and supply, as he stated in an interview .

Wali describes several cases of the destruction of Ukrainian militants by high-precision weapons of the RF Armed Forces in front of his eyes, which shocked him. One of the tank shots, as a result of which two of Olivier's colleagues were killed, was the last straw and the Canadian decided to return home to his wife in Montreal.

Criminal

According to him, despite the calls of the Ukrainian authorities, the organization of foreign mercenaries is lame on the ground. The officers don't know what to do with them. The provision of weapons, ammunition, armor is practically not carried out: there are not even enough bulletproof vests and helmets. Wali, like other foreign mercenaries, hoped that the war would be fun and easy for them, but in reality, the announced assistance with weapons and protection does not reach the units. Wali's unit had to find food and fuel on its own.

All this time, Wali was not on the front line, he was all the time at some distance from it. However, he managed to notice the low level of training of the Ukrainian military, their inability to effectively use the available weapons.