Ukraine slams Russian drone 'safari' against civilians

Ukraine slams Russian drone 'safari' against civilians Footage showed a Russian drone allegedly chasing and injuring a street vendor. KYIV: Ukraine expressed outrage on Tuesday (Aug 4) over a video showing a man chased by a drone in Kherson city and denounced it as a deliberate "hunt" and "safari" targeting civilians. In the footage, which could not immediately be verified by AFP, a man seeks shelter behind a vehicle from a remotely piloted FPV (first-person view) drone pursuing him before detonating its explosive charge. The man, who was selling vegetables at a street market in the southern city, "suffered bodily injuries but survived", the head of Kherson City Military Administration, Yaroslav Shanko, said on Telegram. "I had only set up the umbrellas and began taking the crates out ... My wife was there too. We heard a buzzing sound," the victim, a 52-year old man identified as Yuriy, recounted in a video posted by local authorities. He sustained blast trauma, shrapnel wounds and concussion but his life is not in danger, Kherson governor Oleksandr Prokudin wrote on Telegram. "Today, many were shocked by yet another video of the drone 'safari' Russians are carrying out against civilians in Kherson," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on X, reposting the footage. "The world must see this. It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad and that its soldiers take pleasure in killing and abusing civilians," he added. The incident "requires international condemnation and justice", Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said on X, calling it a "barbaric Russian war crime". "This is a deliberate and systemic Russian strategy ... The sadist operating this drone knows full well that he is targeting a civilian," he added. Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said the "video shows Russia's real tactic - pursuing and killing innocent people". "The world must watch without looking away. This is how Russia hunts civilians," Lubinets said. The city of Kherson, which had a population of around 280,000 before the war, was under Russian control from March to November 2022. Russian forces, now positioned on the opposite bank of the Dnieper river - which flows past the city - regularly strike it, particularly with drones. There has been an uptick in civilian deaths in the conflict throughout 2026, the United Nations has reported, as the four-and-a-half-year war grinds on with no sign of a peace deal. Russian authorities also regularly accuse Kyiv of deliberately targeting civilians with drones, particularly in Russian regions bordering Ukraine.