Ukrainians in Kherson survived Russia's occupation. Now, they're being hunted by drones
Local officials say nearly 70 killed, more than 700 injured in drone attacks since summer
When Dmytro stepped out into the morning sun last October after paying to fill up his car at a gas station in Ukraine's southern Kherson region, the 46-year-old immediately heard the unmistakable buzz of a drone overheard.
And then he felt the force of a powerful explosion.
"It happened so fast," said Dmytro, who asked CBC News to not publish his last name for security reasons. "There were a lot of flames. I was bleeding right away."
He was thrown back into the store, hitting a fridge full of drinks. His eyes stung and pain radiated through his right shoulder.
After stumbling to his feet, Dmytro managed to make it to his car and drove himself to a hospital, where he needed surgery to remove shrapnel that had been created by the explosive dropped by a Russian drone.
Since the summer, the number of drone attacks on people in Kherson has increased dramatically, killing nearly 70 and injuring more than 700, according to local officials.
The attacks, which some have dubbed a "human safari," have forced many to flee the areas closest to the Dnipro River, while trapping others indoors because of a fear of stepping outside.
Authorities in Kherson believe Russian soldiers are deliberately targeting and terrorizing civilians in an attempt to get them to leave the area. Human rights investigators say the Russian military's tactics are a clear violation of international law, and a very worrying example of the terror that can be created by inexpensive drones fitted with explosives.
Frequent attacks
Kherson, which had a pre-war population of around 300,000, was the first major Ukrainian city captured by Russian forces at the outset of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Russia considers the entire region its territory. Kherson is one of four areas that Moscow claimed during what observers describe as sham referendums held in September 2022.
Over the course of nearly three years, Kherson has been occupied, liberated and is now being bombarded by the Russian military. Less than a quarter of its original residents remain.
The most dangerous areas include the suburb of Antonivka, and to the west of that, Kherson's Dniprovskyi district. Both neighbourhoods sit along the Dnipro River, which now acts as a dividing line between Ukrainian and Russian positions.
In those areas and others, drones have stalked people on bicycles and chased pedestrians before dropping explosives on many of them. In some cases, they hit their apparent targets; other times, there are near-misses.
Vehicles have come under frequent attack, including ambulances and city buses. A strike on a bus on Jan. 6 killed two people and injured several others. According to local officials, the dead included a local ecologist and a city employee.
"It is absolutely clear that what we are talking about is an abusive campaign that is targeting civilians," said Belkis Wille, an associate director in the crisis, conflict and arms division at Human Rights Watch, in an interview with CBC News.
"[The people] are really living in a horrifying reality."
'Clear violation' of humanitarian law
Belkis, whose team has been investigating the drone attacks, visited Kherson in November and spoke with dozens of residents. Human Rights Watch has been cataloguing videos taken from the cameras of the drones and posted by pro-Russian accounts on the social media platform Telegram.
The videos often include music and captions with ominous warnings.
In a video posted Jan. 18, a drone hovers above a man who appears to be trying to seek cover next to a building. He looks up and makes the sign of a cross several times, before the drone appears to turn to fly off and the video ends.
The pro-Russian accounts warn that any "civilian infrastructure" or vehicles moving in what they label Kherson's "red zone" — the southern part of the city, along with the suburb of Antonivka — will be "considered as legitimate targets."
"You can't just decide that the entire segment of a city with civilians in it is an area in which you can target anything that moves," said Wille. "That is a clear violation of international humanitarian law."
The Telegram accounts claim that Ukraine's military is trying to operate while blending in with residents. The posts accuse city buses of carrying ammunition and Ukrainian soldiers of driving out in civilian cars. CBC was unable to verify the videos or who exactly was in them.
Throughout the war, Russian officials have said that their military does not target civilians. Ukrainian authorities and victims vehemently dispute this.
"It's a lie," Dmytro told CBC News on Jan. 28, while inside a shelter in the Kherson region. "They shoot where there's no military. And they bomb people. That's how I understand it."
Dmytro, who says he used to work in security, now struggles to walk. He has a heavy limp and a cane. He says he suffered from nerve damage to his legs long before the drone attack.
He said he heard of an elderly woman on a bicycle who was chased by a drone, and a man killed while walking his dog.
A desire to leave
Investigators with the Centre for Information Resilience (CIR), a London-based non-profit, have also been studying footage of the drone attacks. They produced a report saying it is a "realistic possibility" Russian soldiers are using the drone attacks as a live-fire training exercise.
Between July and Jan. 26, CIR found evidence of nearly 130 attacks that appeared to involve civilians. The centre concluded that while the Ukrainian military operates in these areas, some civilians remain and that they and their vehicles are being targeted.
In the last week of January, local officials reported several drone attacks. A 44-year-old man on a tractor was killed, as was a 45-year-old man on a bike.
Residents say when the sun is shining and there is clear visibility, there are sure to be drones in the air. Heavy rain and fog usually means a brief reprieve.
Some people try to avoid being in cars, because the engines drown out the warning buzz of a drone above.
Dmytro said that before he was injured by the drone, he would frequently look up at the skies. After the attack, volunteers helped him, his wife and their five children leave the village. The family now shares two rooms in a temporary housing complex further north.
The risk of shelling, along with the constant threat of drones, has led to an increase of people — particularly those living along the Dnipro River — wanting to leave Kherson.
More and more are being evacuated because of the threat to their lives, said Olha Tykhomyrova, the head of social work for the Chornobaivka district, which is part of the Kherson military administration.
But she says a lot of them have mobility issues and have had difficulty leaving.
'Everything is destroyed'
While speaking to Dmytro at the shelter, CBC News met 75-year-old Lubov Tymofeeva, who arrived after being evacuated from Antonivka.
She walked with a cane, and became overwhelmed when asked about what she has been through. While in her home, Tymofeeva had no phone or heat, and no way to escape.
"It is horrible there. It is hell," she cried, holding her head in her hands. "Everything is destroyed."
Tymofeeva, who lived alone and has no family in Ukraine, says she spent the last three months sleeping under a pile of blankets with no gas or electricity, listening to the drones and the shelling. When she ran out of food, she started warming up water by the light of a candle and adding milk given to her by a group that had dropped off aid.
She wanted to leave but had no working car, so she walked for a few hours to a hospital, where humanitarian workers drove her to the shelter.
"I was hoping maybe soon the war will end," she said. "But it is bloody not ending."
Wille says Russia's targeting of civilians in Kherson is reminiscent of its campaign in Idlib, Syria, in 2018, when its airforce was striking civilian infrastructure like schools as part of its defence of Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime.
Not only is Russia using drones to drop explosives in Kherson, but Wille says they have also been used to scatter landmines.
She says drones have made it possible to target civilians in a deliberate yet inexpensive manner.
"We fear that these kinds of tactics that we're only seeing in Kherson right now … are going to be tactics that you might see used by abusive forces around the world in the future."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
