The Return of 'White Tights': Mythical Female Snipers Stalk Russians

Russia's top investigator is claiming that the Georgians employed mercenaries during their August war -- including female snipers from Ukraine and Latvia. Reuters reports: 

Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey." Bastrykin added: "There were also two snipers ... one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman." 

That sounds an awful lot like the mythical "white tights" -- the exotic female snipers of Chechen war lore who were said to pick off hapless Russian conscripts. As the story had it, these stone-cold, blue eyed killers were said to be from the Baltics -- or Ukraine. They were sometimes described as Olympic biathletes recruited as mercenary sharpshooters by Chechen commanders.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/return-of-white.html