A Russian drone pursued and struck a vegetable vendor on a street in southern Ukraine, in what President Volodymyr Zelensky described as a deliberate 'safari' attack targeting civilians. The man, identified as Yuriy, a street vendor in his fifties, survived the explosion but suffered shrapnel wounds, burns, and a concussion, according to medical staff and his own account to local media.
The footage, which Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha condemned as a 'barbaric war crime', shows the drone tracking the vendor before diving and detonating on impact. BBC Verify geolocated the video to a market area in northern Kherson, a city within range of Russian-operated small drones where residents have long reported being hunted for sport.
A 2025 UN report found that Russian forces had recurrently killed and injured civilians in the area using drones. Separate Russian strikes overnight killed two children and an elderly woman in Sumy, while June saw nearly 300 civilian deaths across Ukraine — the highest monthly toll since April 2022.