Ukrainian officials on Tuesday accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians with explosive-laden attack drones after a verified video emerged showing a drone pursuing a man through a market area before detonating beside him in southern Ukraine.
The footage, whose authenticity was confirmed by Ukrainian authorities and independently verified by international media outlets including the BBC, was shared by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other senior officials as evidence of what they described as a Russian tactic of "human safari" attacks — the deliberate hunting of civilians by drone operators who can see their targets in real time.
Russian drone hunts Ukrainian vendor in Kherson region
According to Ukrainian authorities, the incident occurred Tuesday morning in the village of Tavriyske in the southern Kherson region, near the front line where Russian forces occupy large parts of the area.
The video appears to show a first-person-view (FPV) drone chasing a man around a commercial van parked beside a roadside produce stand. The drone eventually dives toward him and explodes either directly on or immediately beside him.
Regional authorities identified the victim as Yurii, a 52-year-old vegetable vendor. They said he survived the blast but suffered shrapnel wounds and a concussion and was hospitalized. His vehicle was destroyed.
Speaking from his hospital bed to Ukrainian media, Yurii said he and his wife had just unloaded boxes of vegetables when they heard the distinctive buzzing of a drone overhead. He said his wife ran for cover while he attempted to signal to the drone operator by waving garlic bulbs in the air, hoping the operator would recognize he was an unarmed civilian rather than someone attempting to film the aircraft.
"He could see that I had tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants on the ground," Yurii said.
Zelenskyy shared the video on social media, calling it one of many "human safari" attacks that Russia has allegedly carried out, particularly in the Kherson region.
"The world must see this," Zelenskyy wrote. "It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad and that its soldiers take pleasure in killing and abusing civilians."
He called for increased international pressure on Moscow, arguing that without dismantling Russia's military capabilities and providing Ukraine with meaningful security guarantees, "it is simply impossible to imagine the world being able to coexist with this evil."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy
(Photo: AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha also shared the footage, describing it as evidence of a deliberate Russian strategy of targeting civilians.
"This barbaric Russian war crime in Kherson requires international condemnation and justice, yet thousands of similar crimes never reach the public eye," Sybiha wrote. "The sadist operating this drone knows full well that he is targeting a civilian."
Russia has repeatedly denied intentionally targeting civilians during its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
The United Nations has previously documented similar allegations. In a report published last year, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said Russian forces had "repeatedly killed and injured civilians" in the Kherson region using drones. The report also criticized the online publication of drone footage showing civilians being killed or wounded, saying that distributing such videos constitutes an outrage upon personal dignity and may amount to a war crime.
A Ukrainian attack drone detonates at a resort in Gelendzhik on Russia's Black Sea coast
A Ukrainian attack drone detonates at a resort in Gelendzhik on Russia's Black Sea coast
The allegations come as both sides increasingly rely on drones in the war, now in its fifth year. First-person-view drones have become one of the conflict's defining weapons, capable of striking military equipment and personnel with precision at relatively low cost.
Russia, for its part, has also accused Ukraine in recent weeks of deliberately targeting civilians during its long-range drone campaign inside Russian territory. Ukrainian officials have said the strikes are intended to bring the war home to ordinary Russians and increase domestic pressure on President Vladimir Putin to end the conflict.
Those Ukrainian attacks have disrupted fuel supplies, damaged logistics infrastructure and affected commercial operations in Russia. On Monday, Russian authorities accused Ukraine of killing six people, including three children, in a drone strike on a crowded beach at a Black Sea resort, allegations that could not be independently verified.