Image:
People cross a street protected by anti-drone nets in front-line Kherson, Ukraine, on October 2, 2025. (Photo by Nina Liashonok/Ukrinform/NurPhoto)

Hunting from the sky, drones terrorize civilians. Kilometers of roads are now being covered with netting to help people live in a little bit more safety. The so‑called “drone safari” is a grotesque new face of war — It is not combat. It is the deliberate tracking down of civilians for the kill — residents, volunteers, medics — by Russian soldiers who have chosen cruelty over humanity.

Drones circle above streets, waiting for the moment to strike an unarmed person. Let us be clear: this is not chaos, these are not accidents. It is calculated terror. Fear becomes not just an emotion but the very air civilians breathe. This is the intent — to make life impossible, to crush dignity, to erase hope.

Human Rights Watch, in its report “Hunted From Above” (June 2025), documented at least 30 killed and 483 injured between May and December 2024 alone. Quadcopters stalk people and vehicles, then drop explosives in cold precision. It warns: “The use of drones for targeted attacks on civilians can never be justified.” 

ACAPS (the Assessment Capacities Project) reported a peak of attacks between December 2024 and February 2025 — hundreds wounded, many by drones. “We see clear signs of systematization — attacks on the same routes, the same patterns,” their March 2025 report states. 

The UN (OHCHR, May 2025) has recognized these actions as systematic attacks that “may bear the hallmarks of crimes against humanity.” They affirm: “The nature and scale of these attacks indicate deliberate intimidation of the population.” 

Drone safari is prevalent in Kherson on the right bank of the Dnipro River. And all across the front lines, Ukrainians are more and more literally hunted on the streets where they live.

Focus: it is not faceless machines acting on their own.  Distance between the operator and the point of impact does not absolve responsibility.

Behind every drone is a soldier, a person, making a choice — a choice to terrorize, to dehumanize, to turn war into a grotesque game where human beings are prey.