Footage has emerged showing a remotely controlled drone pursuing a civilian in southern Ukraine’s Kherson region, prompting Ukrainian officials to condemn the incident as a war crime. The video depicts the unmanned aircraft chasing a street vendor through a marketplace before detonating upon impact. According to medical personnel, the man sustained shrapnel injuries, concussion, and psychological trauma in the attack.
President Volodymyr Zelensky shared the recording on social media, characterizing it as evidence of Russian forces conducting “safari” attacks against non-combatants. Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the incident as part of a deliberate and systematic campaign to terrorize civilian populations in frontline areas. The identified victim, a 52-year-old vegetable seller named Yuriy, later recounted from his hospital bed how the drone pursued him while his wife fled, suggesting the operator was aware of his civilian status.
The practice of targeting civilians with weaponized drones has been documented repeatedly in the Kherson region, which lies mere miles from active combat zones. A 2025 United Nations report previously highlighted that Russian armed forces have “recurrently killed and injured civilians” through such operations. International bodies have characterized the posting of footage depicting these attacks as constituting potential war crimes, specifically violations of human dignity standards.
Russia maintains it does not intentionally target civilians and denies responsibility for attacks in Ukraine since its 2022 invasion.
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