Ukraine slams Russia’s drone ‘hunt’ against civilian in viral video

Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday expressed outrage over a video showing a man chased by a drone in the southern city of Kherson and denounced it as a deliberate “hunt” 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, a vendor at a Kherson street market, “suffered bodily injuries but survived,” head of Kherson City Military Administration Yaroslav Shanko said on Telegram.

According to Ukraine’s police, the 52-year-old sustained blast trauma, shrapnel wounds and a concussion.

“This is how Russians ‘fight’. They deliberately hunt civilians,” the police said in a statement published on social media.

“This barbaric Russian war crime in Kherson requires international condemnation and justice,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andriy Sybiga said 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 added.

Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubinets said that 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 regions bordering Ukraine.