By Olha Hembik | 2025-01-07

WARSAW -- Russian drone attacks on civilians and public places have become one of the biggest problems in Kherson city since Ukrainian forces liberated it from Russian occupation in late 2022.

Residents of Kherson and its neighboring villages face the risk of death and severe injury every day as guided bombs, artillery and drones are deployed against them.

Iryna Kletkina, who works for the Kherson River civilian shipping fleet, survived the occupation in her hometown. She now helps local residents.

"When the Russians left, we thought they'd leave us in peace. But no, they didn't," Kletkina told Kontur.

"Now when you drive around the city, you see there isn't a single building that wasn't struck. I live in the city center, and our building was attacked twice. Two retirees were killed on the ninth floor."

Kletkina said if it were not for a tree growing in front of the building, she would have been killed by shrapnel in one of the attacks.

"I heard the drone flying. It was like a big beetle -- it was that kind of unpleasant sound. When the drone struck, the tree under the window was hacked to pieces."

"[Russian troops] are stationed here on the other side of the river. People say we need to run and hide. But there's just no time. First there's a whistling sound, and it isn't until after that the siren goes off," Kletkina said.

Target practice

From August through November last year, the city recorded 1,666 cases of drone attacks and objects dropped from drones. The attacks injured 357 residents and killed 30, Roman Mrochko, director of the Kherson City Military Administration, wrote on Facebook on December 17.

"Today Kherson residents are suffering most of all from drone attacks. Civilians are dying every day from the training exercises that newly arrived Russian units are conducting on them," Mrochko wrote.

"On the one hand, the Russians are saying that Kherson is already Russian territory, which the new version of the Russian constitution asserts. On the other, they're deliberately killing local civilians," said Vladyslav Seleznyov, a military correspondent and former spokesman for the Ukrainian general staff.

"And they're not hiding the fact that this is how the Russian drone operators are conducting their drills," he told Kontur.

"This is training on live human beings -- civilians who have no connection to the Ukrainian defense forces."

Russian forces are carrying out "a scorched-earth strategy" to force civilians to leave, he said.

Their tactics also include laying mines in the city streets remotely, dropping PFM-1 and PFM-1C blast mines, known as butterfly mines, Suspilne.media reported November 5.

These mines are hard to spot, and someone who steps on one could be injured severely and even lose a leg.

Kherson police keep a running list on their Telegram channel of remotely mined districts and streets in the city.

On December 18, the police also issued a warning about "hedgehog" traps on roads. These iron "hedgehogs," dropped from a drone, damage tires. When a driver stops to change the tire, a drone carrying explosives arrives at the scene.

Daily attacks

The police and prosecutor's office document every attack by the Russian army on Kherson residents as a war crime.

On December 1, Russian troops attacked a bus in Dnipro district, Kherson city, with a drone, said Oleksandr Prokudin, director of the Kherson provincial military administration, on Telegram. Three Ukrainians were killed, and 11 were wounded.

Then on December 11, Russian drone operators dropped munitions on a fire truck that had been called to put out a fire in a school.

"The situation is become increasingly distressing for civilians living in the province," War correspondent Yuriy Butusov wrote on his Telegram channel.

"The Russian terrorists are taking aim at the civilian population. Drone attacks on public transport are becoming a daily occurrence," said Butusov, who reported on the fire truck incident.

The districts of Kherson city and the nearby villages situated on the riverfront within striking distance of Russian troops are especially dangerous.

Many of the Russian drones are Mavics, which have a range of up to 10km. Russia also operates first-person view (FPV) drones that have a range of up to 30km, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) Ukrainian service reported November 30.

"In this range, they can use cheaper but no less dangerous weapons of destruction, such as Mavics and FPV drones," said Oleksandr Pohrebyskyi, a member of the Kyiv city council, military officer and commander of a drone battalion.

"The Russians use them at close range, where they have the luxury of targeting civilians," he told Kontur.

"They're constantly pummeling Kindiika and Antonivka. The river port district is a horror show, and [civilians] live there too. They bombard Komyshany and Bilozerka," Kletkina said.

"The Russians want to intimidate us to get us to demand that the government sit down to negotiate ... But we aren't about to do that."