Ukrainian authorities on Tuesday released video of a Russian first-person-view drone hunting a civilian vegetable seller through a market area in Kherson, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky described as a 'drone safari' against non-combatants. The footage, verified by Reuters and the BBC, shows the drone chasing the man, identified as 52-year-old Yuriy, around his van before detonating. He survived with shrapnel wounds, concussion and trauma, according to police and regional officials. Yuriy later recounted from his hospital bed that he had held up garlic bulbs to the drone’s camera to demonstrate he was only a vendor, but the device continued to pursue him.

Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the attack a 'barbaric Russian war crime' and said it was part of a deliberate and systematic strategy to intimidate civilians. 'The sadist operating this drone knows full well that he is targeting a civilian,' Sybiha wrote on social media, demanding international condemnation and robust security guarantees for Ukraine. Zelensky urged the world to 'see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad' and to increase pressure on Moscow to force it toward peace.

Russia, which launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022, denies intentionally targeting civilians and did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the Kherson incident. Moscow regularly accuses Ukrainian forces of similar drone attacks on its own territory, including a strike on a beach in Gelendzhik a day earlier that killed seven people. Both sides reject allegations of deliberately striking non-combatants.

The attack highlights the expanding use of cheap, commercially available FPV drones along the front lines, where danger zones now extend deep into urban areas. A 2025 United Nations report documented that Russian armed forces had repeatedly killed and wounded civilians in the Kherson region using such drones, a practice residents have termed a 'human safari'. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine recorded 1,396 civilian deaths and 7,978 injuries in the first six months of 2026, a 37 per cent increase over the same period in 2025, driven largely by long-range Russian missile and drone strikes. Ukraine has called for accountability, while the UN mission continues to document alleged war crimes.