Russian military drones twice targeted a clearly marked UN humanitarian convoy in southern Ukraine on Thursday, prompting condemnation from Kyiv and the UN.
The attack took place in Kherson’s heavily targeted Ostriv area, within the Korabelnyi district, while the mission was delivering food and solar lamps to local civilians.
According to President Volodymyr Zelensky, the targeted vehicle was carrying Andrea De Domenico, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ukraine, along with eight other UN staff members.
“The Russians could not have failed to know which vehicle they were targeting,” Zelensky wrote on Telegram, adding that the team was safely evacuated and no injuries were reported.
Speaking at the Washington Foreign Press Center on Thursday, UN humanitarian chief Tom Fletcher described the incident as a possible “targeted attack.”
“Our people were very, very lucky to escape with their lives,” Fletcher said, adding that the UN was “furious” and would demand “full investigations and accountability,” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty reported.
Zelensky said Russia attacked the vehicle with first-person-view (FPV) drones.
Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration, said UN humanitarian vehicles were hit in the city’s Korabelnyi district.
“In violation of all norms of international law, the Russians attacked vehicles of the humanitarian mission in the Korabelnyi district of Kherson using a drone,” Prokudin wrote on Telegram.
Prokudin described the strike as “absolutely deliberate,” saying Russian state-linked sources later tried to deflect blame by calling the clearly marked UN vehicle “dual-use transport.”
The UN said humanitarian personnel and their assets are strictly protected under international humanitarian law. It also said the mission’s movements had been coordinated in advance with both Ukrainian and Russian forces.
Pattern of disregard for international law
The strike in Kherson was not an isolated incident.
Last October, a clearly marked UN inter-agency convoy carrying World Food Programme supplies came under direct attack while delivering emergency relief to Bilozerka, a front-line town in the Kherson region.
Human rights organizations warn that these incidents fit a broader strategy of intentional terror. Following a year-long investigation into the region, which included interviewing survivors and analyzing hundreds of strike videos, Human Rights Watch (HRW) confirmed that Russian forces are utilizing real-time, camera-equipped quadcopter drones to wage a “brutal, devastating campaign” across Kherson dubbed the “human safari“ by watchdogs.
Because these FPV drones transmit live video feeds directly to their pilots, Russian operators can explicitly see their targets before striking. HRW reports that the victims are targeted indiscriminately in their homes, while harvesting crops, or – as seen in this latest assault – while wearing the clearly identifiable markings of international humanitarian missions.