Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russian forces of deliberately targeting civilians after sharing footage on August 4 that appears to show an explosive drone pursuing a vegetable vendor through the streets of Kherson before detonating beside him. Calling the incident another example of Russia's so-called "drone safari" tactics in a post on X, Zelenskyy said the world "must see" what he described as soldiers "taking pleasure in killing and abusing civilians."
The video, which has circulated widely on social media but has not been independently verified, shows a first-person-view (FPV) drone hovering over a man before chasing him around a parked delivery van and exploding nearby. Kherson regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin later identified the victim as 52-year-old Yurii, who survived with shrapnel wounds to his torso, arms and legs, as well as a concussion.
Speaking from a hospital bed in footage released by regional authorities, Yurii said he and his wife had just begun arranging vegetables for sale when they heard a drone overhead. He said he tried to signal to the drone operator that he was a civilian by holding up garlic and pointing to tomatoes, cucumbers and eggplants laid out for sale. "I was showing it, saying, 'Look, vegetables.' But it started coming straight at me," he recalled. "I started running, it hit the vehicle and I was right next to it."
Ukraine's Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha described the incident as a "barbaric war crime," arguing that the attack reflected a deliberate and systematic campaign to terrorize civilians living near the front line. He said the drone operator "knows full well that he is targeting a civilian" and called for stronger international condemnation.
Kherson, which was occupied by Russian forces from March until November 2022, remains under frequent shelling and drone attacks from Russian positions across the Dnipro River. A 2025 United Nations report concluded that Russian forces had repeatedly used drones to kill and injure civilians in the region and stated that publishing videos of such attacks could constitute the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity.
Russia denies deliberately targeting civilians. The allegations emerged as Russia carried out another large-scale overnight missile and drone strike on Kyiv and the surrounding region on Wednesday (August 5), killing at least 15 people and injuring dozens more, according to Ukrainian authorities. In a Telegram post, Kyiv regional military administration head Tymur Tkachenko described it as "one of its most tragic enemy attacks," adding that "Russia has once again brought death and destruction to our land."
