Kherson Requests Armored Ambulances Amid Constant Russian Attacks

Local officials in Ukraine’s Kherson region have called for the supply of armored vehicles to serve as ambulances amid constant Russian attacks.

The city of Kherson, located just kilometers from the front, is dubbed a “human safari” by some due to Russian troops’ indiscriminate use of first-person-view (FPV) drones against civilian objects as target practice.

The Kherson Regional Military Administration said on Friday that a meeting was held to address the threats posed to local emergency rescuers, where the provision of armored vehicles to use as ambulances was named as an option.

Other proposed solutions included the creation of alternative routes, safe gathering points, and improved inter-agency coordination.

The administration’s Friday update said the routes between the Bilozerskyi district, located northeast and northwest of Kherson, and the Korabel district, located west of Kherson, are especially vulnerable due to Russia’s ongoing war on Ukraine.

“In the Bilozerskyi community alone, seven people died and over 130 were injured in the first half of the year due to Russian strikes, while 27 injured and two dead residents were recorded in Korabel,” it says.

The update says emergency workers make up to 200 trips in the area per day, often under Russian attacks.

“Since 2024, almost 50 specialists have been injured by shelling by the occupiers, and six have died in the line of duty. Also, 44 ​​ambulances have been damaged during the entire full-scale war, nine of them in the last six months,” the update adds.

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Ukrainian long-range drones operated by the Security Service of Ukraine struck the “Temp” state fuel reserve in the Yaroslavl region – over 700 kilometers from the border – and the “Azot” chemical plant in the Tula region. President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the operations, labeling them effective “long-range sanctions.” The strikes ignited large-scale fires at both facilities, degrading Russia’s supply of military fuel and explosives precursors.

On April 17, a Russian drone struck an ambulance in Kherson’s Dniprovskyi district, injuring a 65-year-old paramedic and a 61-year-old driver.

Olga Malyarchuk, the administration’s deputy chief, called the provision of armored vehicles “a critical necessity” to save the lives of rescuers and victims alike.

“The cruelty of the occupiers makes it impossible to send our doctors to dangerous areas in ordinary ambulances, because each such trip is a great risk of not returning. Therefore, providing brigades with armored vehicles is a critical necessity to save the lives of both medical workers and injured people,” Malyarchuk was quoted as saying in the update.

According to a UN report published on May 28, Russian forces have intensified drone attacks on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region since the summer of 2024, killing at least 150 civilians and injuring hundreds more.

The UN Commission and Human Rights Watch (HRW), in their respective reports, independently verified that Russian forces deployed commercial and military drones from across the Dnipro River in Russian-occupied territory, using live video feeds to identify, track, and strike civilians walking, cycling, driving, or sheltering indoors.

UN experts concluded in their report that Russian drone strikes in the Kherson region constitute crimes against humanity and war crimes due to the systematic nature of the attacks against civilians.