Russian Drones Turn the Streets of Kherson Into a Civilian Kill Zone
MYKOLAIV, Ukraine—Yaroslav Pavlivskiy waved his hands as he sprang from his car, pleading for mercy with the operator of a Russian drone circling overhead as he drove home from a market in the southern city of Kherson.
The operator flicked a switch to release a grenade, which exploded and tore into the legs of the 69-year-old pensioner. A passerby used a belt as a tourniquet to stop him from losing too much blood, saving his life.
In the hospital the next day, the doctor showed Pavlivskiy a Russian video of the incident, which was set to techno music and carried a caption: “A drone operator spotted another ‘civilian.’ After reconnaissance, the target was eliminated.”
Russian drone operators have turned daily life in Kherson into a terrifying gauntlet. A year ago, from the other side of the Dnipro River, they began sending drones, in addition to using bombs and artillery, to take potshots at civilians.
Now the attacks have intensified to such an extent that Ukrainian authorities, civilians and human-rights groups say it has become a systematic effort to keep people off the city’s streets under threat of execution from the skies.
The drones drop grenades or antipersonnel mines, or swoop on targets and explode on impact. They target buses, markets, gas stations, and even medical and police vehicles. Residents fear the approach of winter, as nights grow longer and trees shed their leaves that provide natural cover.
It is part of Russia’s growing strategy to terrorize civilians in an effort to sap Ukrainians’ strength to resist in the fourth year of war. The attacks have left Kherson and villages along the Dnipro almost deserted. The youngest victim killed in the region, also known as Kherson, was a 1-year-old boy.
The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Russian drone operators often post videos of their hits on social media, warning that all civilians should leave the city or die. With a prewar population of over 300,000, Kherson now has about 65,000 residents.
As the range and quality of drones have improved, Russian operators are flying deeper into the city. Residents are now worried that the main highway into Kherson, situated about 13 miles from the front, is too deadly to drive because of the constant drone attacks.
As many as 30,000 drones have been launched at Kherson city since the start of the year, killing 90 civilians and injuring over 1,300. “They are not humans after what they are doing,” Pavlivskiy said.
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One year since the attack, Pavlivskiy can barely walk despite enduring seven surgeries, including a bone transplant. He now lives in Mykolaiv, a regional capital north of Kherson.
While Pavlivskiy was at the hospital, another drone operator killed a 16-year-old cyclist on his street. Another two neighbors were wounded. Now his neighborhood next to the river is deserted. The trees are covered with the thin fiber-optic cables used to direct some of the drones.
A United Nations commission said in May that Russian authorities have committed the “murder of civilians in Kherson province, as part of a coordinated state policy, and hence, as crimes against humanity.”
Russians often refer to the areas along the Dnipro as the “red zone,” where any civilian or vehicle will be targeted.
In June, Vladimir Saldo, a former Kherson mayor who now governs the Russian-controlled part of the region, endorsed in his Telegram channel the attacks on civilian infrastructure and said civilians should leave.
A Russian video posted in July showed an elderly man running for cover under a tree. A drone dropped several grenades on him before setting fire to his house and garden. The video ended with the entire street engulfed in flames.
Another video from June showed several Russian drones striking civilian vehicles and a firetruck. “There will be no more mercy,” a caption on the video said.
A video published in August featured a drone dropping an explosive on a man walking his dog in the shadow of a large fence. The dog was wounded in the attack and the video shows the man dragging it away. “No one deserves pity. Spare me your whining,” the video caption says.
Most of what residents dub “human safari” videos appear on Telegram channels dedicated to celebrating them.
Kherson residents don’t walk outside without checking the sky for drones. They try to hide under trees and the shadows of buildings, and run in zigzags when drones start chasing them.
Many believe Russia is terrorizing them as a revenge for the massive rallies that were held in 2022 against the invasion and the warm welcome Ukrainian forces received when the city was retaken that fall. Nobody doubts that Russians want to break the city dwellers psychologically.
“This is both a terror and a psychological pressure,” said Yuriy Antoshchuk, head of a nongovernmental organization in Kherson province that advises civilians on security.
Joshua Scriven, an investigator at the Centre for Information Resilience, a London-based open-source data research group that collects data on the attacks, said Kherson is a convenient training ground for Russian drone operators as they are relatively safe beyond the river and the city is teeming with targets on its street.
“This individual targeting just does not seem to have any military merit,” Scriven said.
In April, paramedic Oleksiy Alferov was checking the blood pressure of a man injured by a Russian drone when another struck the ambulance he was working in. The vehicle jolted and was set on fire. Shrapnel broke Alferov’s leg and a passing taxi driver rushed both him and the ambulance driver to the hospital.
“Thank God, people in Kherson are now united and helping each other,” said Alferov, 65 years old. He is still recovering after surgeries and walks with a limp, but he intends to return to work.
As a survival tip, Alferov advised keeping a lookout for birds. “If their wings don’t move, it could be drones,” he said.
Medics are among the primary targets of Russian drones, along with police officers, firefighters and volunteers who help deliver food or evacuate residents, said Kostiantyn Trubiyenko [his image below], a former chief paramedic of Kherson region’s emergency medical center.
Six of his colleagues have been killed and 49 wounded since the invasion. More than 30 ambulances have been destroyed or damaged. The wreckage of two ambulances still lies on the road because rescuers risk being targeted again if they try to remove them. “This is terror. This is nothing but terror,” Trubiyenko said.
Medics now wear protective gear, and use drone detection and jamming devices. Still, the protection is minimal and Russia often launches a second strike against first responders helping the wounded, Trubiyenko said.
Residents often move from the more dangerous parts of the city to relatively safer northern neighborhoods. But since July, when Russians began striking the road that connects Kherson with Mykolaiv, no part of Kherson can be considered safe from drones.
“You don’t know where the bomb will drop and that’s difficult,” said Ihor Dorokhin, 35, who was wounded by a grenade from a drone while he was on his way to a store in Kherson. “It is constant stress.”
Dorokhin said he had three or four seconds to react when he saw the grenade fall. It gashed his legs and landed him in the hospital for five separate operations.
Life in the smaller towns east and west of Kherson along the river is even worse. “We live in a mousetrap,” said Vadym Pustokhin, 26, from Romashkove, a town about 20 kilometers west of Kherson. Once home to 300 people, Romashkove now has no more than 30 residents, mostly elderly.
Pustokhin said he saw about 40 drones flying over his house every day. Whenever volunteers tried to bring food to the town, he would climb onto his roof to check for drones and warn them if it was safe to enter.
Still, locals have managed to cultivate their kitchen gardens. “They hear the buzz of a drone and hide in barns or henhouses. Then, when the drone passes, they all come out,” he said.
In June, Pustokhin was wounded by a mine explosion that also killed his cat, Pumka. His neighbors carried him to a volunteer delivering humanitarian aid, who drove him to a hospital in Kherson. Ambulances no longer go to Romashkove.
Pustokhin said hospitals in Kherson are overcrowded with wounded patients. “And it’s all because of drones,” he said.
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