As Ukraine faces another winter under siege, the Russian military continues to escalate its violence and push forward along the eastern front. And it’s all taking place against the global backdrop of the U.S. transition to a new presidential administration, multiple collapsed governments in Europe, and the fall of the Kremlin-backed Assad regime in Syria.
In Ukraine, the Russian military appears to be priming the pump for retaking Ukrainian territory it had lost two years ago in the southeastern region, or oblast, of Kherson, using a particularly sinister terror tactic referred to by local residents as a “human safari.” The tactic involves the prolific use of unmanned “suicide” or “kamikaze” drones that appear to hunt down civilians as they attempt to go about their lives in distinctly civilian areas.
Such drone targeting has had a significant physical and psychological impact on the population of Kherson: Whenever residents step outside their homes, they face the real and frequent threat of being hunted down by a Russian-operated drone, generating persistent anxiety, fear, and an atmosphere of constant danger with no escape. The tactic takes advantage of the unique geography of the region and the proximity of Russian-controlled and Ukrainian-controlled areas. As such, it also seems to be part of a Kremlin strategy to seize the greatest-possible advantage before any potential peace or ceasefire negotiations. It also may be aimed at shaping the environment for the longer term — by threatening the population of a Ukrainian-controlled area enough to force them to leave in advance and to pacify those who remain in the event of another takeover.
How Russia’s “Human Safari” Functions in Kherson
The port city of Kherson is the administrative center of the oblast of the same name, located in the southeast of Ukraine on the Dnipro River not far from Odesa and Crimea. In the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine that began on Feb. 24, 2022, the city, which had a prewar population of about 280,000, was one of the first to fall to Russian forces in early March. It was a short but bloody battle resulting in the deaths of as many as 300 Ukrainian civilians and fighters and eight months of occupation.
Kherson’s citizens demonstrated against Russian rule and were met with forceful resistance from the Russian occupational authorities. But later that year, in November 2022, Russian forces withdrew under fierce pressure from the Ukrainian military, liberating large areas to Ukrainian control once again. Today, Ukrainian forces hold the city and some surrounding villages on the left bank of the Dnipro, while Russian forces control the eastern bank. In recent days, the city also has come under heavy shelling from the Russian forces on the other side of the river, and Ukrainian authorities anticipate a potential large-scale Russian ground offensive.
With the battle lines active around Kherson, civilians appear to be a key target for the Russian military. Since this summer, Russian forces have been using several types of drones in what appears to be an effort to target and follow civilians in Kherson. The devices include first-person view (FPV) drones that allow the remote pilot to see what the drone sees in real time, Chinese-produced Mavic drones that face a potential ban in the United States over national security concerns, and Russian Lancet kamikaze drones. These drones can travel as far as about nine miles, which allows them to be controlled from temporarily-occupied territory of Ukraine and cross the Dnipro River into Ukrainian-controlled Kherson.
More than 9,500 Russian drone attacks have been reported in the city of Kherson and its neighboring villages just since August, causing at least 37 deaths and more than 500 injuries. The danger comes from the explosives these drones carry. Most of the devices are fitted with grenades or other improvised explosives. Others carry more powerful explosives, including anti-tank mines and RPG warheads that appear to be used more frequently to target humanitarian-response infrastructure and military vehicles. Some even carry incendiary bombs dropped to set fields and buildings on fire. Some use “petal” mines that resemble leaves when dropped from overhead.
Because of the volume and the small size of the drones, they are challenging for Ukrainian forces to detect and counter. Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesperson for the Kherson military administration, said officials counted “dozens” of attacks per day in August, amounting to more than 2,500 over the course of the month.
Psychological Impact
The buzzing of drones and the danger that they portend have become an everyday backdrop to life in Kherson, a region already scarred by Russia’s brutal occupation in 2022, which included disappearances, abductions, and protests broken up by Russian forces with rubber bullets and stun grenades. Despite being liberated from occupation, civilians in the Kherson region remain under constant threat and have been forced to take unprecedented and difficult precautions in their everyday lives, oftentimes being forced to stay indoors as much as possible and, when they need to go somewhere, drive quickly or stop under trees to avoid detection from any drones overhead. As one Kherson resident told BBC News, the residents of Kherson “are in a horrible situation” forced to “move from one tree to another, taking cover.” Kherson’s local government has even advised residents of Kherson to stay home or carry a tourniquet while outside the house in case of attack. Residents find reprieve only in heavy rain, which makes it more difficult for drones to fly.
The scenes have echoes of images from the 1990s war in Bosnia, when residents of the capital Sarajevo were forced to navigate a city under siege by Bosnian Serb forces arrayed along the hilltops surrounding the town in the valley. Any outing for daily essentials of food or water or to and from work for those fortunate enough to still have work required speeding in cars along targeted corridors to evade snipers or dashing on foot from one place of cover to another.
One Kherson resident told The Telegraph that the sense of danger is so constant that “people have become calloused, they lose the meaning of life.” Russian military bloggers- soldiers in the army – have taken to Telegram to share videos that appeared to show Kherson residents being systematically hunted down and killed by drones. Videos of innocent Ukrainian civilians being chased down, struck, and left injured or dying on the street have been widely disseminated. Speaking directly to the term “human safari” as used by Kherson’s residents, one Telegram post declared, “the hunt has started,” and other bloggers in the Russian military who document their drone attacks openly brag that they aim to target “anyone or anything that moves.” The dissemination of these videos contributes to the sense of brutal dehumanization of the people of Kherson and exacerbates the atmosphere of terror.
Target Practice?
This form of violence is especially odious as the Russian military appears to be intentionally targeting innocent civilians and civilian objects, which would be a war crime under the international laws of armed conflict. The Ukrainian head of Kherson’s regional administration, Oleksandr Prokudin, deemed it “targeted terrorism,” citing the apparently deliberate nature and intent to kill or intimidate a civilian population.
Prokudin and other officials expressed their suspicion to the Financial Times that the widespread use of drones to hunt down civilians may be a new component of the Russian military’s training regime. In an investigation published this month by the Centre for Information Resilience’s (CIR’s) Eyes on Russia project, researchers found that the vast majority of such strikes in Kherson appeared to target vehicles, particularly non-military trucks, cars, ambulances, and buses. This suggests that the military may be practicing the targeting of moving objects, perhaps with the intent to replicate this type of drone targeting on other parts of the front line. CIR reported, “Russian units on the right bank of the Dnipro River using civilian targets for live training exercises is a realistic possibility.”
Terror, Depopulation, and Territorial Gains Ahead of Negotiations
The outcome of the 2024 U.S. presidential election and President-elect Donald Trump’s not-yet-clear approach to ending the war in Ukraine will greatly impact the trajectory of Russia’s aggression and may already be affecting the Kremlin’s operations and calculus. The incoming administration has already begun to push for peace talks, albeit without proposing a structure or preferred outcome when it comes to temporarily-occupied territories, NATO membership for Ukraine, and security guarantees for the country going forward. While Trump’s rhetoric may suggest that he intends to bring the Kremlin to the table, whether he will force Putin to do so at a benefit or cost to the Kremlin’s economic and military aims is still not clear.
That leaves the Kremlin looking for the strongest possible position in advance of any talks, a ceasefire, or pressure to enter a negotiated settlement in which the conflict is frozen along the battle lines at that time. In such an event, capturing the river-port city of Kherson would prove an asset to the Kremlin. There is not yet concrete evidence that the Russian military is making plans to cross the Dnipro and retake Kherson immediately, and Russia currently seems most focused on hotspots including the Ukrainian territory of Pokrovsk (where Russia is gaining ground) and its own territory of Kursk (where it is seeking to recapture areas seized by Ukraine in a surprise lightning maneuver in August this year).
But a move on Kherson cannot be ruled out in the medium- to long-term. Indeed, Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov recently declared a goal of fully occupying four regions of Ukraine by 2025, notably including Kherson, as well as Donetsk, Luhansk, and Zaporizhzhia. Such Russian control of Ukrainian territory has proven devastating to residents, Additionally, a move across the Dnipro River into Kherson proper also would give the Russian military a significantly easier route to push beyond the lines it reached in the initial full-scale invasion in 2022, before Ukrainian forces liberated Kherson in November that year.
In the meantime, Russia’s “human safari” in Kherson is shaping conditions aimed at countering civilian resistance — and even existence. An exhausted population living in constant danger and distrust of their environment is more difficult to defend. One risk is that this Russian tactic will wear down the people of Kherson and prevent them from resisting a Russian incursion and the spread of Russian influence. It also may be intended to drive the people of Kherson to flee entirely, making the area that much easier to capture and – importantly — hold. One Kherson resident told The Guardian, “There were maybe 1,500 or 2,000 people in my area after the Russian occupation ended. Now, there are 1,000 at most.”
As depopulation in Kherson continues under the inescapable threat of targeted drones, the Kremlin moves closer to the goals of its potential strategy to take territory before a ceasefire along current lines. The effect also clears the area of civilian resistance and Ukrainian resilience to make way for Russian capture and occupation. The additional possibility that the Russian military is using Kherson residents as training targets also suggests that the Kremlin is ramping up its modes of aggression in Ukraine and expanding its highly illegal tactics of war.
U.S. and European governments supporting Ukraine should more frequently and forcefully call out and condemn these tactics and provide additional support to help the Ukrainian military intercept the drones and respond more effectively when they hit. Humanitarian organizations and human rights groups such as Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch also could help by drawing more attention to the depravity and illegality of these tactics. And the West should keep a keen eye on any such tactics used by Russia to gain more ground, in any way, in advance of or during negotiations.