WRITTEN BY DEFENCE CORRESPONDENT
9TH AUG 2026
Russia is expanding its drone campaign around Kherson into a more systematic effort to hunt vehicles, raising the prospect of a widening threat to both Ukrainian military logistics and civilian life.
Ukrainian authorities say Russian forces have ordered drone operators in the region to conduct what they describe as “free hunting” for vehicles, using unmanned aircraft including fibre-optic-controlled drones that are difficult to disrupt with conventional electronic warfare.
Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said Russian forces had increased the number of drone operators in the area as part of the operation. Particular attention is reportedly being paid to vehicles that can be identified as belonging to Ukraine’s armed forces.
But the danger extends beyond military targets.
Prokudin warned that areas where vehicles congregate — including supermarkets, markets and petrol stations — could face heightened risks in the coming weeks. The geography of Kherson, where civilians and military personnel operate in close proximity, makes distinguishing legitimate targets from ordinary traffic particularly difficult.
The development marks a further evolution of Russia’s use of drones in and around the southern Ukrainian city. Fibre-optic drones are especially difficult to counter because their communications link is physically connected to the operator, limiting the effectiveness of electronic jamming.
For residents, the consequence is a potentially lethal new layer of uncertainty. A routine journey to buy food or refuel a car could become an opportunity for a drone operator to track and attack a vehicle.
The warnings also come after an incident that illustrated how little separation there can be between military operations and civilian life in Kherson.
Days ago, a Russian military drone was reportedly filmed circling a market and pursuing a vehicle belonging to a civilian selling vegetables. According to Prokudin, the drone followed the vehicle for approximately a minute as it appeared to track the man.
The episode has intensified concerns that drones are being used not simply to strike military positions but to intimidate and terrorise people attempting to maintain ordinary life in a city that remains within range of Russian forces.
Kherson’s vulnerability is rooted in its proximity to Russian-held territory across the Dnipro. The city has endured sustained shelling and drone attacks since Ukrainian forces liberated it in late 2022.
The emergence of organised “free hunting” tactics threatens to make movement itself a security risk.
For Ukraine, the challenge is therefore not only protecting front-line troops. It is keeping roads, markets and essential services functioning while Russian drones increasingly turn the spaces between them into potential kill zones.
The battlefield is no longer simply where armies meet. In Kherson, it can begin wherever a vehicle starts moving.
The human safari: How Kherson became the front line of Russia’s war on civilians
WRITTEN BY SHAUN PINNER, UKRAINE CHIEF CORRESPONDENT
6TH AUG 2026
For much of the world, Kherson has disappeared from the headlines, but for those still living there, every trip to buy bread, collect water or open a market stall can become a fight for survival.
This week, the world watched footage that should have led every international news bulletin.
A 52-year-old fruit seller was stalked through the streets of Kherson by a Russian first-person-view (FPV) drone.
As terrified shoppers scattered, the drone repeatedly circled his van before exploding beside him.
He survived with shrapnel wounds, but has the detonation occurred little more than a metre closer, he almost certainly would have been killed.
The incident was verified by Reuters, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky condemned what residents have come to describe as Russia’s “human safari” campaign against civilians.
But for Kherson’s remaining population, there was little surprise.
This has become daily life.
Russian FPV drones now patrol the city looking not for tanks or artillery, but for pedestrians, cyclists, market traders, delivery drivers and anyone unfortunate enough to find themselves outdoors.
Local journalist Zarina Zabrisky, one of the few foreign correspondents still regularly reporting from Kherson, has documented the phenomenon for years, describing residents as being “hunted… as if caught in some macabre human safari.”
The attacks are disturbingly simple. Sometimes FPV drones crash directly into civilians; other times they drop grenades from above. There is often little or no attempt to distinguish between military targets and ordinary people, but the objective appears clear: to make Kherson uninhabitable through constant terror, forcing those who remain to live under the permanent threat of death every time they step outside.
I had only just come off the phone with Zarina when she described the latest reality facing the city. She had managed to find a mobile signal after yet another Russian strike.
“The substation’s just been hit,” she told me. “There’s no water, no power.”
As we spoke, gunfire crackled in the background.
“That’s the Wi-Fi and internet gone as well,” she said. “At least for a couple of days. It’s going to make reporting a real problem.”
Her call was a reminder that in Kherson, even documenting the war has become part of the battle. Journalists are working in a city where electricity disappears without warning, communications are routinely cut, and stepping outside to report can place them in the sights of an FPV drone.
Ambulances rushing to the wounded have themselves reportedly become targets, while emergency responders increasingly risk death simply by trying to save lives. International investigators have previously concluded there are strong grounds to believe many such attacks amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The horror unfolding in Kherson is only one part of a much broader escalation.
Across Ukraine, Russia continues to launch waves of ballistic missiles, Shahed drones and increasingly destructive guided aerial bombs against cities far from the frontline.
Apartment blocks in Kramatorsk have once again been reduced to rubble.
Kyiv has faced repeated ballistic missile attacks, with Ukrainian officials reporting the use of at least one missile carrying a cluster warhead, scattering submunitions across densely populated districts of the capital.
Meanwhile, the growing use of heavy guided glide bombs, some carrying hundreds of kilograms of explosives, has allowed Russian aircraft to devastate urban neighbourhoods while remaining outside the range of many Ukrainian air defence systems.
According to United Nations figures, more than 16,000 civilians have now been confirmed killed since Russia’s full-scale invasion began.
The real figure is widely believed to be significantly higher.
The UN has warned that civilian casualty levels during 2026 are now approaching those recorded during the opening months of the invasion in 2022, driven by the growing intensity of long-range missile strikes, drones and aerial bombardment.
That campaign has also been strengthened by North Korean supplies of ballistic missiles and ammunition, allowing Moscow to sustain an unprecedented pace of attacks despite years of sanctions.
Yet perhaps the most shocking aspect is that little of this is hidden.
Many of these attacks are filmed.
Some are celebrated online by pro-war Russian channels.
The evidence no longer relies solely on satellite imagery or eyewitness testimony. Increasingly, civilians are recording their own attempts to survive while drones circle overhead.
The violence is accompanied by increasingly uncompromising rhetoric from Moscow.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly denied Ukraine’s separate nationhood, insisting Russians and Ukrainians are “one people” and declaring that “where the foot of a Russian soldier steps, that is ours.”
At the same time, Russia continues to pursue policies in occupied territories that include forced passportisation, replacing Ukrainian education with Russian curricula, suppressing the Ukrainian language and deporting Ukrainian children.
Those allegations have already resulted in the International Criminal Court issuing an arrest warrant for Putin over the unlawful transfer of children from occupied Ukraine, while European states have agreed to establish a Special Tribunal to prosecute Russia’s leadership for the crime of aggression.
For many Ukrainians, however, legal proceedings remain painfully detached from reality.
Their concern is far more immediate.
How does a civilian safely sell fruit when drones deliberately hunt him?
How does an ambulance reach the wounded if rescuers themselves become targets?
How does any city continue functioning when leaving home may simply place you in the sights of an operator sitting safely dozens of kilometres away?
Those are no longer hypothetical questions.
In Kherson, they have become part of everyday life.
Another quote from Shaun :
“This is increasingly difficult to describe simply as Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. It is a war being sustained by a coalition of authoritarian powers, with Russia pushing westwards into Europe while North Korea and Iran provide varying degrees of military support.”
I’m not sure why this is in the news since the cockroaches have been committing these crimes for over a year.
The answer is that worldwide, no one knows or cares about this horror, even though putler has now formalized the genocide:
“For much of the world, Kherson has disappeared from the headlines, but for those still living there, every trip to buy bread, collect water or open a market stall can become a fight for survival.”
Sheer horror for those living there. And no one in the supposedly civilized world gives a flying fuck.
The left keep banging on about non-existent “Gaza genocide” and the mainstream keep bollocking on about fucking “climate change.”