Video shows Russian drone chasing Ukrainian street vendor in 'human safari' attack

Video shows Russian drone chasing Ukrainian street vendor in 'human safari' attack Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky shared a video on social media that depicts a drone hunting a street vendor in the Kherson region, describing the footage as evidence of a Russian “safari” assault on civilians. The recording shows the drone pursuing the vendor along a city street. The man attempts to flee the hovering aircraft, ducking behind a white van as it follows him. Eventually the drone strikes him, detonates on impact and leaves him injured. Referred to as a “human safari,” the use of remotely operated drones against non‑combatants has repeatedly been employed by Russian forces to terrorize residents in frontline areas of Ukraine. Zelensky wrote on Telegram: “The satellite indispensable spot this,” Zelensky wrote connected Telegram. “It indispensable spot each portion of grounds that Russia has gone mad, and each information that Russian soldiers are enjoying killings and tormenting people.” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the video a “barbaric warfare crime.” He added, “The safaris were a 'deliberate and systemic Russian strategy,' Sybiha said. 'The sadist operating this drone knows afloat good that helium is targeting a civilian.'” The Kherson regional politician later posted a follow‑up video featuring the vendor, identified as Yuriy, a 52‑year‑old street vegetable seller, speaking from a hospital bed after the attack. Yuriy recounted that he and his wife had begun arranging crates of vegetables beside his van when he heard a distinctive buzzing overhead. When his wife fled, the drone turned toward him. He raised several heads of garlic toward the drone’s camera to show he was not filming it. “It could spot that I had tomatoes out, immoderate cucumbers and eggplants laid retired connected the floor,” Yuriy said. “It adjacent ducked nether the umbrella erstwhile I was moving distant circular the different side.” Nevertheless, the drone dove into him and exploded. Yuriy suffered a concussion, psychological trauma and multiple shrapnel wounds, according to his doctor; his van was destroyed. BBC Verify geolocated the footage to a market area beside a roundabout in the Tavriiskyi district of northern Kherson. “Safari” attacks have long been carried out by Russian troops in Kherson, which lies only a few miles from the front line. A 2025 UN study reported that Russian armed forces “recurrently killed and injured civilians” in the country by using drones to target them. The videos captured by the drones before they detonate on their targets are frequently posted online, allowing thousands to witness the final moments of terrified victims. The UN stated: “Posting videos of civilians being killed and injured amounts to the warfare transgression of outrages upon idiosyncratic dignity,” the UN said.