A video showing a Russian explosive drone stalking and detonating beside an unarmed market trader in the frontline city of Kherson has drawn fresh accusations of war crimes from Kyiv, days after the United Nations reported that civilian casualties across Ukraine had climbed to their highest monthly level in more than four years.

Ukraine's National Police released footage on Monday showing a first-person-view (FPV) drone pursuing a 52-year-old vendor as he sprinted between parked vehicles at a market in Kherson before the device detonated metres away. The man, a resident of the neighbouring Mykolaiv region, survived but suffered blast trauma, a concussion and shrapnel wounds, police said.

The Ukraine conflict has entered a new and brutal phase as a tit-for-tat missile war escalate that is increasingly targeting civilian assets including supermarket and petrol station as well as built up areas.

Christopher Miller, the Financial Times' lead Ukraine correspondent, wrote on X that the footage was emblematic of what has become known as Russia's “human safari” in the region. “If there’s one video that truly exemplifies Russia’s ‘human safari’ it might just be this one,” he wrote. “Ukraine’s National Police shared this horrifying footage of a Russian explosive drone hunting a civilian man at a market in the frontline city of Kherson.” He added that “the 52-year-old resident of the neighboring Mykolaiv region survived, the police said,” but “he suffered injuries, including shrapnel wounds and a concussion.”

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said the footage was evidence of a wider, deliberate campaign against civilians in the city. “Today, many were shocked by yet another video of the drone ‘safari’ Russians are carrying out against civilians in Kherson,” he wrote on social media. “A Russian drone deliberately hunted down a man selling vegetables and detonated right next to him. The Russians even admitted to the crime, showing zero regret and openly boasting about tormenting people. The man was wounded in the blast. Every single day, ordinary people in Kherson face these Russian ‘safaris.’”

“The world must see this,” Zelenskiy continued. “It must see every piece of evidence that Russia has gone mad and that its soldiers take pleasure in killing and abusing civilians. Without pressure on Russia, the dismantling of its capacity for aggression, and real security guarantees, it is simply impossible to imagine the world being able to coexist with this evil. We must remain resolute in defending life. We must act and support life in ways that force Russia to seriously think about peace rather than expanding the range of its drones.”

He added: “This is not just about Ukraine. Russia’s campaign against human life must be stopped here in Ukraine before it spreads further. Finland and Kazakhstan, the Baltic states and Poland, the countries of the South Caucasus, Romania, and Moldova — all should work together to ensure real security guarantees and bring Russia’s war to an end. Peace is needed, which requires cooperation among everyone in the world who truly values peace. Thank you to everyone standing with Ukraine!”

Andrii Sybiha, Ukraine’s foreign minister, called the strike “a barbaric Russian war crime” that “demands international condemnation and justice,” writing on X that “thousands of similar crimes never come to public attention.” He said the attack reflected “a deliberate and systematic Russian strategy,” adding: “The sadist controlling this drone is fully aware that he is aiming at a civilian.” Sybiha said the footage proved that “Russian barbarians will try to repeat their genocidal atrocities in Bucha everywhere they can reach,” and argued that a lasting peace would require “comprehensive justice for such horrific crimes, a powerful defence and deterrence package for Ukraine, and reliable, guaranteed security.”

The incident is the latest documented case in what human rights investigators have concluded is a co-ordinated campaign against civilians on the Ukrainian-held bank of the Dnipro river. In a report published in October 2025, the UN’s Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine found that Russian forces’ use of shortrange attack drones against civilians amounted to crimes against humanity, widening an earlier finding from May 2025 that had focused on roughly 100km of the Kherson region’s right bank.

In another notorious incident, a Russian Molniya kamikaze drone deliberately targeted and killed a one-year-old toddler playing in the garden who was being looked after by his grandmother in July last year, also Kherson.

The home in the village of Pravdyne in the Kherson Oblast killing the boy Dmytro outright and injuring his grandmother, 64, who suffered a concussion, blast trauma and closed head injuries, Ukrainska Pravda reported at the time, citing regional officials.

Ukraine's military tracked the strike to a launch point in Russian-occupied Hola Prystan and destroyed the drone crew responsible three days later — the General Staff said five FPV drones were sent in, four hit their target, and no further launches came from that site afterward. Kherson Oblast Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram: "Dmytro should never have been a target. I thank our soldiers for their just retribution. No occupier who brought death and destruction to our land will escape punishment."

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 293 civilians were killed and 1,990 injured across the country in June 2026 — the highest monthly total since April 2022, and 10% higher than in May. Casualties in the first half of 2026 (1,396 killed; 7,978 injured) were 37% higher than in the same period of 2025. Kherson region recorded 18 civilians killed and 236 injured in June, one of the highest regional tolls, the mission said. Short-range drone strikes near the front line caused their highest monthly civilian toll of the war so far that month, killing 89 people and injuring 588.