Voices from the Front
When a fruit seller becomes a target, what else are we meant to call it?
This isn’t recycled news, it’s frontline insight.
I’m a former British Army soldier who fought with Ukraine’s Marines, survived the siege of Mariupol, and endured Russian captivity. Now, I report on this war from inside Ukraine, my home, not from a studio, but from the ground where it’s actually happening.
AUG 05, 2026
Yesterday, the world watched footage that should have dominated every front page.
A fruit seller in Kherson wasn’t carrying a rifle, wasn’t driving an armoured vehicle or directing artillery fire. He was simply trying to earn a living.
A Russian FPV drone hunted him through the market, circling his van as he desperately tried to escape before detonating beside him. Miraculously, he survived with only shrapnel wounds, but had the explosion landed a metre differently, he almost certainly wouldn’t have survived. Reuters verified the footage, while President Volodymyr Zelensky described it as another example of Russia’s “drone safari” against civilians, adding that “Russia has gone mad” and calling for far greater international pressure.
The question isn’t simply why this happened. The Kherson “human safari” is now a well-documented case study. The real question is why so many still struggle to call it what it appears to be.
Because this wasn’t an accident or collateral damage. This was a civilian standing beside crates of fruit and vegetables, visibly trying to survive another day in a city that has become a hunting ground.
Kherson residents have been describing these attacks as “human safaris” for well over a year. FPV drones patrol the streets searching for pedestrians, cyclists, market traders, motorists and even pets. The pattern is neither new nor isolated. Journalist Zarina Zabrisky, one of the few correspondents to remain based in Kherson, has documented these attacks for years. As she wrote, “Today, the city’s residents are hunted by Russian drones, as if caught in some macabre human safari.”
Zarina Zabrisky 🇺🇸🇺🇦@ZarinaZabrisky
🔴 EXCLUSIVE: An interview with the human safari survivor. Yuri, 52, was sorting out garlic at his farmers market stand when a Russian drone started to chase him. It pursued Yuri around in circles and then struck him. Yuri and his doctor spoke to me at a hospital in Kherson🧵
5:31 PM · Aug 4, 2026 · 295K Views
169 Replies · 1.83K Reposts · 6.96K Likes
They chase them aggressively before dropping grenades on them, or crashing directly into the victim. Hospitals, ambulances and emergency responders are all being targeted, while International investigators have previously concluded there are strong grounds to believe many of these attacks amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The rhetoric is also there, coming from the very top of the Russian state. As recently as June 2025, and reiterated again in recent remarks, Vladimir Putin once more denied Ukraine’s separate nationhood, declaring:
“I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one people. In that sense, the whole of Ukraine is ours.”
He went further:
“Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours.”
More recently, Putin extended that logic even further, suggesting that western Ukraine also belongs to Russia, reinforcing the message that no part of Ukraine is regarded as a genuinely sovereign state, but rather as territory to be reclaimed.
Putin continues to promote an ideology that rejects Ukrainian sovereignty and has increasingly been accompanied by the occupation, forced Russification and displacement of Ukrainian civilians.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has continued to frame Russia’s objectives as the “de-Nazification”of Ukraine, language that has increasingly been interpreted not simply as military rhetoric but as an attempt to delegitimise Ukrainian national identity itself.
The rhetoric has been accompanied by policy too. In March 2023, the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Vladimir Putin, alleging responsibility for the unlawful deportation and transfer of Ukrainian children from occupied territories into Russia. Beyond the ICC, momentum has continued to build for accountability. In 2025, the Council of Europe and its international partners agreed to establish a Special Tribunal for the Crime of Aggression against Ukraine, designed to prosecute Russia’s senior political and military leadership for the decision to launch the invasion itself, addressing a crime that falls outside the ICC’s current jurisdiction.
Beyond the deportation of children, Russian authorities have been accused of pursuing the systematic Russification of occupied territories through forced passportisation, the replacement of Ukrainian education with Russian curricula, the suppression of the Ukrainian language and identity, and coercing residents into accepting Russian citizenship or being denied access to basic rights and essential services. Ukrainian authorities, along with a growing number of legal scholars and human rights experts, argue these measures form part of a deliberate effort to erase Ukrainian identity in occupied regions.
Yet despite the overwhelming evidence of systematic attacks on civilians, the execution of prisoners of war, the forcible transfer of children, the suppression of Ukrainian identity, and the rhetoric emanating from the highest levels of the Russian state, the international response remains remarkably restrained.
So when are we allowed to mention the “G-word”?
Shaun Pinner@ShaunPinnerUA
In the Obolonsky district, there was a strike on a non-residential building. Also, in the Obolonsky district, according to preliminary information, there was a strike on an office building,” – the Mayor of Kyiv stated. They also struck the “Epicenter” shopping center in
7:09 AM · Aug 5, 2026 · 2.43K Views
1 Reply · 31 Reposts · 97 Likes
Yesterday’s attacks was only one part of another devastating day across Ukraine.
Russian forces continued striking cities with ballistic missiles, Shahed drones and guided aerial bombs. Apartment buildings in Kramatorsk were hit, once again demonstrating that civilians remain directly in the line of fire.
The weapons themselves tell part of the story. During last night’s assault on Kyiv, Ukrainian officials reported that Russia used at least one ballistic missile equipped with a cluster warhead, dispersing submunitions across a wide area of the capital. Cluster munitions are designed to maximise casualties over broad areas, making their reported use in a densely populated city particularly alarming and adding to growing concerns over Russia’s continued attacks on civilians.
Russia routinely employs Iskander ballistic missiles, Iranian-designed Shahed attack drones, cruise missiles and increasingly large numbers of guided aerial bombs (KABs). These glide bombs can carry hundreds or even thousands of kilograms of explosives. While they are described as “guided,” they remain area-effect weapons. Against apartment blocks, schools and densely populated urban areas, the distinction between military necessity and indiscriminate destructionrapidly disappears.
Overall, more than 16,000 civilians have now been confirmed killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began, although the true figure is almost certainly much higher. The United Nations has warned that civilian casualty levels in 2026 are now reminiscent of those seen during the early months of the war in 2022, driven by an intensifying campaign of long-range missile, drone and guided aerial bomb attacks. That campaign has been sustained not only by Russia’s expanding defence industry, but also by North Korean supplies of ballistic missiles and munitions, allowing Moscow to maintain a tempo of strikes that continues to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defences.
None of this is hidden.
It is even filmed.
Shared.
Verified.
Sometimes these attacks are even celebrated by those who carry them out, as seen following the Russian strike on a UN convoy in May this year.
So why does the word “genocide” remain almost untouchable?
The answer is partly legal rather than emotional.
Under the 1948 Genocide Convention, genocide is not defined solely by mass killing. Prosecutors must demonstrate a specific intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group. That is an extraordinarily high legal threshold, which is why international courts often take years before reaching such conclusions.
That legal caution is understandable, but this war is now well into its fifth year, while the aggressor continues to openly employ rhetoric that denies Ukraine’s nationhood and questions its very right to exist. At some point, legal caution gives way to political caution, and those are not the same thing.
Because once governments officially recognise genocide, the consequences extend far beyond semantics. Expressions of concern are no longer enough, states face difficult questions about their obligations under international law, accountability, sanctions, diplomatic relations and, ultimately, what action they are prepared to take. The debate shifts from whether atrocities are occurring to what governments are legally and morally required to do about them.
Perhaps that is why so many continue to avoid the word altogether. Not because the evidence is insufficient, but because acknowledging the possibility carries consequences that many governments would rather postpone.
Meanwhile, Russia remains a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, an institution established to uphold international peace and security after the horrors of the Second World War. Instead, one of its permanent members now stands accused of systematically attacking civilians while possessing the power to veto many attempts at meaningful accountability.
………….
HOME AUTHOR
SHAUN PINNER, UKRAINE CHIEF CORRESPONDENT
Just days after finding ourselves among the first on the scene of a Russian missile strike less than 1.5 kilometres from our apartment in Kyiv, I returned to Dnipro.
Another night brought another wave of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and attack drones aimed at Ukrainian cities. Air raid sirens echoed across the city while reports of explosions filtered in from across the country.
After more than four years of war, this has become routine.
That, perhaps, is the most dangerous development of all.
Russia isn’t conducting an indiscriminate terror campaign. It has adapted its strategy, rather than relying on individual weapons to penetrate Ukraine’s air defences, Moscow now launches combinations of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, attack drones and decoys in overwhelming numbers, designed to exhaust a finite stock of interceptor missiles before the most dangerous weapons arrive.
The figures from recent attacks illustrate the challenge.
During the overnight assault on 1 August, Russia launched 27 Iskander-M and North Korean KN-23 ballistic missiles, alongside cruise missiles, anti-radiation missiles and 185 attack, reconnaissance and decoy drones. Ukrainian air defences neutralised more than 150 drones, an impressive achievement under extraordinary pressure.
The ballistic missiles told a different story.
Only one of the 27 ballistic missiles was intercepted.
This is not a failure of Ukraine’s air-defence crews, however, it is the consequence of simple arithmetic.
Patriot interceptor missiles remain one of the few systems capable of reliably engaging ballistic threats. They are expensive, difficult to manufacture and available only in limited numbers, unfortunately, Ukrainian commanders therefore face increasingly impossible decisions over which cities receive protection and which must simply hope they are not targeted next.
Russia understands this.
Rather than slowing its missile campaign, Moscow has expanded it while increasingly drawing upon North Korean missile production and stockpiles to sustain the tempo of attacks.
Meanwhile, Western defence industries continue to struggle to manufacture Patriot interceptors quickly enough to replace those being fired.
This industrial imbalance is becoming one of the defining battles of the war with the consequences measured in civilian lives.
According to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission, civilian casualties during the first half of 2026 increased by 37% compared with the same period last year, with long-range missiles, attack drones and guided aerial bombs responsible for much of that rise.
Those statistics become very different when you are standing in the street moments after a missile has struck.
Being among the first on the scene means checking whether people are trapped beneath collapsed buildings before emergency services arrive. It means hearing eyewitnesses describe neighbours who were inside moments earlier while hoping they escaped. It means recognising that every successful interception prevented another family from suffering the same fate.
This is why the debate surrounding Patriot interceptor missiles matters far beyond military planning.
Political statements suggesting renewed support for Ukraine offer reassurance, but wars are not won by headlines. They are won by industrial capacity, production lines and missiles inside launch canisters when ballistic threats appear on radar.
Today, Russia is exploiting a widening gap between how quickly it can replenish its missile arsenal and how quickly the West can replace the interceptors Ukraine depends upon.
That is the uncomfortable reality facing Ukraine.
The Kremlin has recognised that the country’s greatest vulnerability is no longer manpower along the front line.
It is mathematics.
Unless that equation changes, Russia’s strategy of saturation will continue to place growing pressure on Ukraine’s air defences, while civilians across the country pay the price every night the sirens begin to sound.
And Winter is coming……
https://londonlovesbusiness.com/ukraines-air-shield-is-being-worn-down-one-missile-at-a-time/
“Today, Russia is exploiting a widening gap between how quickly it can replenish its missile arsenal and how quickly the West can replace the interceptors Ukraine depends upon.
That is the uncomfortable reality facing Ukraine.”
The solution from Krasnov’s standpoint is to refuse all military assistance to Ukraine.
The solution from Europe is to blather on about a “coalition of the willing.”
For Ukraine, it is having to live with a pathetically feeble Europe and an openly hostile United States of Krasnovia.
“As recently as June 2025, and reiterated again in recent remarks, Vladimir Putin once more denied Ukraine’s separate nationhood, declaring:
“I have said many times that I consider the Russian and Ukrainian people to be one people. In that sense, the whole of Ukraine is ours.”
He went further:
“Where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours.”
And that is why putinaZiism must die.
“Western defence industries continue to struggle to manufacture Patriot interceptors quickly enough to replace those being fired.
This industrial imbalance is becoming one of the defining battles of the war with the consequences measured in civilian lives.”
This was highly predictable from Feb 2025, when it was finally understood that the WH was occupied by a monster who hates Ukraine, but no one reacted.