Serhiy Dobrovolsky was a hardware dealer who returned to his Kherson home just before noon. He walked into his yard and lit a cigarette while chatting with his neighbour. They heard a drone buzzing above them.
Angela, Serhiy’s wife of 32-years, says that she saw her husband take cover and run as the drone dropped a bomb. “He died before an ambulance arrived.” “I was told that he was very unfortunate, because a shrapnel piece pierced his chest,” she says, tearing up.
Serhiy was one of 30 civilians who died in a sudden increase in Russian drone attacks on Kherson since the 1st July, according to the BBC. Over the same period they have recorded over 5,000 drone attacks, with more 400 civilians being injured.
Both Ukraine and Russia have used drones to attack military targets.
The BBC has seen and heard eyewitness accounts, as well as credible evidence, that Russia is also using drones against civilians in Kherson.
Angela says, “They can see the people they are killing.” “Do they want to fight by bombing people who are walking on the street?”
If Russia is found to have deliberately targeted civilians, this would be a crime.
The BBC did not receive a response from the Russian military regarding the allegations. Since its full-scale attack in February 2022 Russia has consistently denied intentionally targeting civilians.
BBC Verify examined six videos that were shared on Ukrainian and Russian social networks. They show evidence of drone attacks on civilians.
In each video we see the remote operator’s camera tracking the movements of a pedestrian, or motorist, in civilian clothing. They often drop grenades that sometimes appear to kill or seriously injure their target.
BBC Verify also identified a Telegram channel that has the earliest copies of five of six videos analysed.
Each poster was accompanied by threats and goading directed at the Ukrainian public. These included claims that all vehicles are legitimate targets and that the public should minimize their public movements. The injured were also insulted and called “pigs”, or in one instance mocked because they were women.
The account that posted some of these drone video also posted images of unboxed and boxed drones and other images of equipment to thank people for their donations.
The BBC reported that the military administration of Kherson said that Russia had changed the type drones it uses and the electronic systems of the city can no longer detect a majority.
“You feel constantly hunted. Someone is always watching you and could drop explosives at any time.” Kristina Synia, a worker at a Dnipro River aid centre, says it’s the worst.
To avoid being followed by drones on our way to the centre, we drive fast, park under trees, and quickly head inside.
A small device, located behind Kristina on a shelf, confirms the threat from outside by buzzing every time it detects drones. It buzzed continuously while we were there, detecting at least four drones.
The residents who we meet are wracked with fear. They bravely left their homes to buy food. Valentyna mykolaivna wipes away her tears, “We’re in a terrible situation.” We move from one tree into another to take cover when we come out. “Every day, they attack public busses and drop bombs using drones,” says the woman.
Olena Kryvchun claims that a drone strike narrowly missed her car. A bomb exploded above the driver’s side of her car just minutes before Olena Kryvchun was to return home after visiting a friend. The vehicle was a mangled mess, with metal, plastic, and glass.
“If I had been in my car I would have perished.” She asks, “Do I look like someone in the military? Does my car look like one?” She is a cleaner, and the car is essential to her job. She doesn’t want to spend money on it.
Olena believes drones are scarier than shelling. “When we hear an explosion on the other side, we have enough time to react. You can easily miss drones’ sound. They are quick and they strike quickly.”
Ben Dusing who runs the centre says drones spread more fear than shelling and immobilise the population. “If a drone locks onto you, it’s likely ‘game over’ by that point. He says there’s no defense against it.
Oleksandr Tomokonnikov is the spokesman of the Kherson military administration. He says that the Russian military began using drones in the last few months to drop mines remotely along pedestrian, vehicle and bus routes.
He said that the explosions were caused by leaf-coated butterfly mines, which are small anti-personnel bombs that can glide to ground and explode on contact.
The BBC was unable to verify that drones were used to distribute mines at Kherson.
Olena believes that as winter approaches the fear of drones will increase. “When the leaves drop from the trees, many more people will be victims.” “There is nowhere to hide if you’re on the street.”
How we verified drone videos
By identifying the distinctive features of the city streets, we were able locate the six videos that we analysed. They were all filmed on the eastern side. In one case, where a drone dropped a bomb on two pedestrians, one of whom was so badly injured he couldn’t walk, this was a bend at a T junction, which pointed towards the Dniprovs’kyi District or the nearby suburb Antonivka rather than Kherson’s city centre.
We were able, once we had identified a possible place, to match the visible landmarks on the video with satellite images. In this case it was the buildings and pylons. This confirmed the exact location of the attack.
We searched for several frames of each video to try and determine where it first appeared. Often, the earliest results were from a Telegram channel. This predated reposts to sites like X or Reddit.
We were able, using the location of the attack and the shadows, to calculate the time the filming took place. We then compared this with the weather records in order to determine the most probable date.
Four of the videos that we examined were posted to the Telegram channel on the day following the filming. In one case, the video was posted eight hours after the filming.
Imogen Anderson, Anastasiia Lozhko and Volodymyr Lozo contributed to this report. Richard Irvine-Brown has done the verification work.
Read More @ www.bbc.com