Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky posted a video on X this Tuesday of what he called an example of a “human safari,” a term used by Ukrainian authorities to describe a hunt for civilians by the Russians. In the footage, released by the Kherson Military Administration (southern part of the country) and verified by Reuters, a drone is seen chasing a man in a market. The drone hovers in front of the man as he tries in vain to slip between vehicles until he is targeted and an explosion occurs.
The 52-year-old victim survived and has injuries caused by the detonation, shrapnel wounds, and a concussion, according to local police.
This drone attack is a new example of how the conflict is impacting a growing number of civilians, with missile and unmanned aircraft attacks in Russia and Ukraine crossing the front lines. In 48 hours, at least 31 people have died—nine of them just this Tuesday—but both sides deny that ordinary citizens are an intentional target.
In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have entered Russian territory and mainly attacked warehouses of the digital retail store Wildberries, known as the Russian equivalent of Amazon. Ukraine accuses the chain of supplying the Russian army with drone parts—accusations the company denies. Additionally, these attacks are part of a long-range drone strategy used by Kyiv to make the war felt in the daily lives of Russian citizens.
On Tuesday, five people died and another ten were injured in a drone attack in the industrial area of the city of Chekhov, near Moscow, reported the regional governor, Andrei Vorobyov, on his Telegram account. The attack also set fire to a warehouse and caused damage to an electrical substation and an administrative building. However, Vorobyov did not specify which company the facilities belonged to.
Meanwhile, Wildberries reported that firefighters were controlling a fire after an attack with no casualties that affected one of its warehouses near Saint Petersburg—which is more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine’s northern border.
In Ukraine, Russia has also repeatedly attacked logistics centers and other infrastructure since it launched its large-scale invasion of the country in 2022. Early Tuesday, at least three people, including two children, died in Russian attacks on the city of Sumy in the north of the country. An elderly woman also died in an attack on the port city of Mykolaiv, in southern Ukraine near the Black Sea. Russian forces also attacked three ships in this port on Tuesday, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense on its Telegram account. Another ship was attacked off the coast of Odesa.
On Monday, a Ukrainian drone attack on a beach in southern Russia caused seven deaths, three of them children, and nearly 40 injuries. On the same day, the leader of the annexed Crimean peninsula, Sergey Aksyonov, had already reported on his Telegram channel the death of four other civilians in a Ukrainian night attack. In addition to the 11 deaths on Russian territory, another 11 people also lost their lives in Ukraine, Reuters reports.
