Russia’s disturbing human ‘safaris’

Violating the laws of war, Russians have created a sick game of hunting civilians with FPV drones near the frontline. We take you behind the scenes, to the people most affected.

DISCLAIMER: This story includes descriptions and images which may be disturbing for some readers.

A civilian car hit by an FPV drone, photo provided by Serhii.

Yana had a promising job at a hospital in the Kherson region, but at some point, her commute to work became marked by traffic jams.

The sides of the road leading to her hospital had started to become littered with burned-out cars that no one had cleared away.

The same went for the bodies that had charred inside them.

“You couldn’t pull them out, they were fused,” she said.

The term ‘human safari’ originates from the Kherson region. The city of Kherson is separated from the Russians only by the Dnipro River, making it prone to short range drone attacks. Dozens of civilians still suffer each day from this bloody game invented by the Russians to entertain themselves on the battlefield.

First Person View (FPV) drones have changed not only the Russian-Ukrainian war but also warfare practices around the world. Now, a $400 drone can effectively strike military equipment that costs millions. They’re highly convenient for precise attacks: they’re small, fast, and easy to control.

Countries with high crime rates and authoritarian regimes are already studying FPV-drones’ capabilities. FPV drones were recently used by drug traffickers in the clashes between authorities and drug cartels in Brazil.

Yana and her family lived in the village of Shyroka Balka, just 10 kilometers from Russian positions, up until a few months ago.

They left because they did not want to be targets anymore.

Yana, 31, had lived there since childhood. The area is known for its vast steppes and, before the invasion, a wide river, numerous farms, and the sweetest watermelons.

In summertime, people flocked to the countryside from nearby cities to spend holidays, swim, and go to dance clubs. Just before the invasion, Yana was offered a job as the head of the local hospital’s laboratory.

But the arrival of the Russians and their drones changed everything.

A man with a white flag in Kruhliakivka, Kharkiv region, was killed on November 3, 2025. Screenshot by 77th Separate Airborne Brigade.

All along the frontline, Russian soldiers are targeting Ukrainian civilians in very personal ways. Last week, a video spread across social media showing Russian forces killing two elderly men with a dog as they tried to leave a frontline area in the Kharkiv region under a white flag. An FPV drone first fatally struck one man, then killed the other.

A Ukrainian serviceman sets up an FPV drone in Zaporizhzhia region, 2023 (Photo by Elena Tita/Global Images Ukraine via Getty Images).

For civilians like Yana on the ground just trying to survive, it begins with the quiet, annoying buzz of a drone.

The first instinct is to run and hide.

“You can tell by the sound whether the FPV is empty or loaded. If the sound is light and monotonous, it means there is something light inside, perhaps a self-igniting mixture or some kind of grenade,” said Yana.

If the drone’s sound is heavier, she said, it might contain a grenade launcher or other heavier ammunition.

But if you can see it, it’s already too late. Running is not an option, as the drone can reach speeds of 150 km/h or more.

So you pray.

“A drone can land somewhere in the bushes, detect a person walking or a car driving by, and suddenly take off. It stares at you, you stare at it. There’s nothing you can do. Nowhere to run. Either it has something attached to it, or it’s flying with something. If it drops on you, your arms are in two, your legs are in two,” Yana said.

Yana headed a hospital lab where she often witnessed people seeking medical care and describing yet another Russian war crime. Sometimes she heard about the victims from her colleagues.

She was also often ‘hunted’ herself.

“I found myself in a situation where I couldn’t see [the FPV] yet, but I could already hear it. It was green then, and you run somewhere into the trees and wait. And sometimes it sees a person running, and then it can wait there, just buzzing and mocking the person,” Yana said.

An FPV drone operator sees what the drone sees, as a small camera is mounted on the copter in the direction of flight, and the video is transmitted to the pilot’s remote control.

This means the operator can maneuver to pursue a target while the drone flies, making FPVs effective against moving targets – and especially useful for identifying the target before the moment of impact.

This distinguishes FPV drone strikes from strikes with other kinds of weapons, especially when it comes to strikes on civilians. Unlike with missiles and mortars and artillery, it’s hard to argue that the strikes aren’t deliberate.

A damaged bus after the Russian drone attack on a civilian passenger bus in Kherson on January 06, 2025. As a result of the hit, one person was killed. Photo by Kherson Regional Military Administ./Anadolu via Getty Images.

Between April and October this year alone, 73 people were killed in the Ukrainian-controlled territory of the Kherson region as a result of FPV drone attacks.

“An elderly man was riding his bike. They [Russians] dropped something from a drone. That’s it, the man is lying dead, and it’s impossible to retrieve him. You won’t go there. The body was taken away in a day,” Yana told The Counteroffensive.

According to her, it’s often impossible to take away the body of a killed civilian by ambulance. Russians wait for someone to come get the body so that they can strike again.

Yana said they don’t care who comes: a child, a woman, a social worker, a doctor, or even a dog.

Still, there are ways to counter the drone threat, like using anti-drone nets, electromagnetic warfare (EW), or simply shooting down drones with shotguns.

Soldiers get to positions on electric scooters because driving a car is too dangerous. Photo provided by Serhii.

Anti-drone nets could be an effective solution, ideally with both city streets and intercity roads shielded from drones with nets: metal, durable, and long-lasting.

The drones get tangled up in them before they can hit their target and fail to detonate. If an area is not covered with such a net, however, anyone driving a car near the front does so at their own risk, said the commander of a Ukrainian unit, Serhii*.

Torn anti-drone nets on the Kostiantynivka direction. Photo provided by Serhii.

Currently, anti-drone nets are not widely used. Both Serhii and another serviceman serving on the Kostiantynivka axis, in the Donesk region, confirmed to The Counteroffensive that such nets are scarce in their area.

“Right now, my biggest concern is about the Druzhkivka-Kostiantynivka highway. There are nets installed there, but they are made of rope, which burns in two seconds. There are metal ones in storage that could save many lives. But for some reason, no one wants to install them,” the serviceman told The Counteroffensive.

The Counteroffensive reached out to the Ministry of Defense and local authorities for comment on the matter, but received no response by the time of publication. Kostiantynivka has been under the Russian offensive since late spring.

The situation in the Kherson region is slightly better.

In a comment to The Counteroffensive, the deputy head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, said authorities are working on a three-level defense against drones, which includes EW, mobile fire teams that shoot down drones, and anti-drone nets.

According to Tolokonnikov, as of last week, 96% of all FPV-drones attacking the Kherson region were neutralized.

“It’s good that they [local authorities] are putting up nets, but they should have done it sooner,” said Yana.

People installing anti-drone nets in Kherson, 28 August 2025. Photo by Suspilne Kherson.

Locals are also trying to protect themselves on their own. They buy analyzers, or specialized devices that intercept FPV frequencies and show what Russian pilots and FPV drones see. Yana says that at one point, her entire village chipped in to buy anti-drone nets and then installed them themselves.

An intercepted broadcast from a Russian FPV drone showing the hunting of a farmer in the Donetsk region. Video by 12th Special Forces Brigade “Azov” Facebook.

Screenshot from the Deep State map, cities Kherson, Nikopol, and Marhanets (Dnipropetrovsk region) are underlined in red — cities that have suffered constant Russian terror since 2022 due to their immediate proximity to the line of contact.

Meanwhile, civilians remain defenseless. From January to October 2025, in the Dnipropetrovsk region cities of Nikopol and Marhanets alone, there have already been twice as many attacks and civilian deaths from FPV drones as all of last year.

“Why do they hit roads, civilian objects? To minimize the number of cars and civilians on the street. So that civilians are afraid to travel. If you drive on the roads, it means [according to the Russians] you are a combatant,” Serhii explained.

Many locals do not want to leave their hometowns despite the ongoing Russian onslaught. Apart from Kostiantynivka with its approximately 5,000 holdouts, about 1,000 people remain in Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, where fighting has been going on for a year and a half.

Yana left her village, Shyroka Balka, in August after her house had been attacked by FPV-drones around 21 times, and her brother, who served in the army, was killed by an FPV-drone during a combat mission in the Kherson region.

There is almost nothing left of her house now, she said, only two walls.

Civilians are also unable to rely on some of the tricks they’d used before to protect themselves, as the Russians have upgraded the weapons they use for their ‘hunts.’ A year ago, it was easier to intercept their frequencies with analyzers, but now they’ve developed radio-wave drones and are starting to use fiber-optic drones, which are impossible to intercept.

“You can hear it [the drone] is above you post factum. At that moment, there’s no point in running,” Yana said.

Away from home, she feels unwanted and wants to go back.

“Who needs us? To live as homeless people in someone else’s house when I have my own?” Yana said, “They [other people] are far from this. They don’t understand what it’s like to leave home and not know if you’ll return. Whether you’ll get from point A to point B.”

*This character’s name has been changed for security purposes.

NEWS OF THE DAY:

By: Oleksandra Khelemendyk

UKRAINE’S SECURITY AT RISK DURING SHUTDOWN: Due to the longest government shutdown in U.S. history, $5 billion worth of U.S. weapon exports to Denmark, Croatia and Poland is delayed, the State Department said.

The final destination of the weapons in question, which include AMRAAM missiles, Aegis combat systems, and HIMARS, is unclear, but arms sales to NATO allies are often transferred to assist Ukraine.

AUSTRALIA BUYS RUSSIAN OIL THROUGH LOOPHOLE IN SANCTIONS:

Australia has imported more than 3 mln tonnes of Russian oil since 2023 through a port part-owned by Singaporean Macquarie Bank, researchers found. This happened due to a loophole in Australian sanctions against Russia.

Australia’s sanctions allow businesses to buy oil from third countries, thus leaving a risk of indirectly funding the destruction of Ukraine by Russian armed aggression.

POWER CUT IN THE PRESIDENTIAL RESIDENCE: The power was cut off twice in the presidential residence of Mariinsky Palace during the interview of President Zelenskyy with The Guardian.

During the interview, the President said that Ukraine is planning to buy 27 Patriot anti-aircraft missile systems and noted the contribution that King Charles III made to convince Donald Trump to continue his support to Ukraine.

CAT OF CONFLICT:

Mariana’s cat, Simba, casually sleeps on the floor, as if he works night shifts to feed his 3 children (he is just too relaxed).

Stay safe out there.

Best,
Tania