War often brings out the darkest moments of humanity. One such moment was captured on camera in Ukraine, where a man selling vegetables is seen pleading with a drone, folding his hands in desperation. As its ominous buzz echoes through the video, the drone relentlessly tracks him around a trailer, forcing him to circle it repeatedly before exploding just behind him. For the person operating the drone from miles away with a joystick, the man appeared reduced to little more than a character in a video game.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky shared the video on social media which he said shows a Russian drone carrying out a “safari” attack on a civilian in southern Ukraine.
The footage, posted on Telegram, shows a man being chased on a street in the Kherson region before the drone drops onto him and explodes.
The man, identified as a street vendor, survived the attack, a doctor said, but suffered multiple shrapnel wounds, concussion and trauma, reported BBC.
Zelensky said the video should be seen across the world as proof of Russia’s actions against civilians.
In the footage, the drone is seen hovering above the man as he tries to move away along a city street. It then follows him as he runs around a white van, before diving towards him and detonating on impact.
Such attacks, sometimes described as a “human safari”, involve remotely operated drones being used against civilians and, according to Ukraine, have often been used by Russian forces to terrorise residents living in frontline areas.
“The world must see this,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram. “It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad, and every fact that Russian soldiers are enjoying killings and tormenting people.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha called the footage a “barbaric war crime” and said these safaris were a “deliberate and systemic Russian strategy”. “The sadist operating this drone knows full well that he is targeting a civilian,” he said.
Sybiha added that the attack was part of a deliberate Russian campaign to intimidate civilians and called for international condemnation.
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