Ukraine has condemned footage appearing to show a civilian in Kherson being pursued by a drone, describing the incident as a calculated “hunt” and “safari” against ordinary people.
The video, which AFP was unable to independently verify immediately, shows a man taking cover behind a vehicle as a remotely piloted FPV (first-person view) drone follows him before detonating an explosive.
The victim was selling vegetables at a street market in the southern city and “suffered bodily injuries but survived”, Yaroslav Shanko, head of the Kherson City Military Administration, said on Telegram.
“I had only set up the umbrellas and started taking the crates out… My wife was there too. We heard a buzzing sound,” the 52-year-old man, identified as Yuriy, said in a video released by local authorities.
“Today, many people were shocked by yet another video of the drone ‘safari’ that Russians are carrying out against civilians in Kherson,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on X, where he reposted 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.
Man chased by drone in Kherson city
Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said the incident “requires international condemnation and justice”, calling it a “barbaric Russian war crime” in a post on X.
“This is a deliberate and systemic Russian strategy … The sadist operating this drone knows full well that he is targeting a civilian,” he said.
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,” Mr Lubinets said.
Five dead, 10 injured in drone strike on Moscow region
In Russia, meanwhile, a drone attack on an industrial area outside Moscow killed five people and injured 10, the regional governor said as Moscow and Kyiv exchanged strikes.
Ukraine has carried out long-range attacks against civilian infrastructure in Russia and has intensified strikes in recent weeks on warehouses linked to Wildberries, the Russian e-commerce giant.
Ukraine frequently launches hundreds of drones into Russia overnight, responding to Russian attacks involving hundreds of drones and dozens of missiles against Ukrainian towns and cities.
Yesterday, Russia said seven people, including three children, had been killed and 40 wounded at the Black Sea resort of Gelendzhik in what it described as a deliberate Ukrainian drone attack on civilians.
Drone strikes Black Sea resort killing seven, including children, say Russian officials
Ukraine did not immediately comment. Both sides deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war launched by Moscow in 2022.
Andrey Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, said early this morning that a drone strike triggered several fires in the Novoselki industrial zone outside the Russian capital.
“According to preliminary information, five people were killed,” he said on Telegram, adding that 10 others had been injured.
A drone also damaged a warehouse near Krasny Bor in northwestern Russia, wounding one person, according to Aleksandr Drozdenko, governor of the Leningrad region.
Wildberries said the attack caused a fire at its logistics facility in Krasny Bor.
Another Wildberries warehouse was hit by a Ukrainian drone in the rural area of Emmaus, around 180km northwest of Moscow, regional governor Vitaly Korolyov said.
Read more: Latest Ukraine stories
In northeastern Ukraine, Russian attacks killed two children and an elderly woman in Sumy, the head of the regional military administration said.
“Two children and an elderly woman were killed in Russian (guided aerial bomb) strikes on Sumy tonight,” Oleg Grygorov said on Telegram.
“The girls were 5 and 10 years old. The children’s bodies were recovered from under the rubble of their house.”
At least three people killed in Ukraine
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Six guided aerial bombs struck civilian infrastructure across the city, hitting residential and non-residential buildings, Mr Grygorov said.
In the southern port city of Mykolaiv, another attack killed an 89-year-old woman, according to Georgy Reshetilov, head of the regional military administration.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and has repeatedly attacked its neighbour, including from the Crimean peninsula.
Ukraine’s front lines changed little in July, with Ukrainian forces largely halting Russia’s momentum, according to AFP analysis of data from the Institute for the Study of War.
