A terrified Ukrainian market trader was chased through a Kherson square by a Russian FPV drone that deliberately hunted him down before exploding just feet away in the latest sickening example of what locals call Putin’s ‘human safari’.
Chilling security camera footage circulating online shows the 52-year-old vegetable seller, named as Yurii, frantically trying to escape as the kamikaze drone circles him like a bird of prey at a busy market in the city’s Tavriyskyi district early yesterday morning.
In one heartbreaking moment, the desperate father clasps his hands together in a pleading gesture towards the sky, as if begging the distant operator not to kill him. Seconds later the drone dives and detonates in a cloud of smoke and debris.
Miraculously, Yurii survived – but only just. He suffered blast trauma, shrapnel wounds to his back and legs, a closed head injury, hearing damage and concussion. He remains in hospital in a moderate condition.
Ukrainian National Police confirmed the victim is a civilian from the neighbouring Mykolaiv region who had simply travelled to Kherson to sell his produce from a van. His wife was with him unloading vegetables when the drone appeared around 6.30am near Three Bayonets Square. She managed to flee; he did not.
In a later interview, the shaken farmer described the nightmare: “I show him, ‘Look, vegetables.’ And he started diving at me.” The drone circled his vehicle for nearly a minute, tracking his every move before striking.
Police were unequivocal: “This is how the Russians ‘fight’. They deliberately hunt civilians. The man on the video has no signs of being a combatant – he is simply trading at the market. Yet for the aggressor’s military he is still a target.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy condemned the attack in strong terms, calling it yet another “drone safari” that Russians are carrying out against ordinary people in Kherson. “A Russian drone deliberately hunted down a man selling vegetables and detonated right next to him,” he said. “The Russians even admitted to the crime, showing zero regret and openly boasting about tormenting people.”
He added: “Every single day, ordinary people in Kherson face these Russian ‘safaris’. The world must see this. It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad and that its soldiers take pleasure in killing and abusing civilians.”
The incident is far from isolated. For months, Kherson, liberated by Ukrainian forces in 2022 but still within easy range of Russian positions across the Dnipro River, has endured a relentless campaign of FPV drone strikes deliberately aimed at shoppers, bus passengers, ambulance crews and people simply walking the streets.
Locals and officials have long described the tactic as a “human safari”, a cynical training exercise in which Russian operators practise their deadly skills on living targets. Hundreds of civilians have been killed or maimed in the city since the campaign intensified.
Yurii’s ordeal, captured in grainy but unmistakable footage released by Ukrainian police, has once again laid bare the pure sadism of the attacks. No military equipment was nearby. No soldiers. Just a man trying to earn a living selling vegetables at dawn.
As Zelenskyy warned, this is not merely another battlefield tactic. It is a deliberate campaign of terror designed to empty Kherson of its remaining residents – one drone strike at a time.
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