The videos from which you freeze are reminiscent of computer games. One of the published shots shows a person who is first chased by a drone through the viewfinder. After a while, he aims at him, throws a grenade at the civilian, hits him. He falls to the ground, a cut follows and everything repeats again with another person. All this accompanied by cheerful Russian music. This is the reality of the last months in the Ukrainian Kherson. Frightened locals began to call it the “human safari”.
In the last few months, drone attacks on ordinary people have increased significantly. “Drones are a real pain for Kherson. The target is everyone,” says Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the military administration of the liberated Kherson region.
According to him, everyone is at risk – from people standing near shops to pedestrians, cyclists to drivers in cars. In the summer in Kherson, they recorded an average of one hundred drone attacks per day, however, with the onset of autumn, their number increased dramatically.
The Kyiv Independent newspaper described the stories of several locals who have personal experience with drone attacks. Anastasia was riding her bike home when one of the drones targeted her. It wasn’t the first time it happened to her, once she ran away from a drone on foot, the second time the bus she was riding in was hit. The drone dropped a grenade on her, which exploded right at her feet and injured her legs so that she could not walk.
Footage from this specific attack was subsequently posted on a telegram with a picture of a winking smiley and the comment “Ukrainian armed forces ride on bikes… this is a strong three hundred (300 – Russian code for a wounded soldier). Evacuation is not allowed.’
When the trees fall, nothing will prevent them from aiming
Another woman, introducing herself as Olga, avoided the attack by seconds, the Russians hit her car, from which she got out moments before. Now he is afraid of what the winter will bring. “Where are we going to hide when there are no leaves on the trees?” he asks, adding that then the Russians will have almost nothing in the way of drone targeting.
Locals alike describe similar scenarios. First you hear the buzzing of the drone. When the Russians target them, they throw a grenade. One of the residents experienced that, for example, a Coca-Cola can filled with explosives fell instead of a grenade.
Port Kherson has been a city on the front line since the beginning of the Russian invasion. After several months of occupation, the Ukrainians liberated it in November 2022 and drove the Russians back to the other side of the Dnieper. The river is currently the only thing that separates the city from the Russian bombing.