Ukraine has accused Russia of a war crime after video emerged of a drone chasing down and ultimately wounding a street vendor.
According to Reuters, the incident took place in Kherson, a city in Southern Ukraine. Reuters confirmed the location of the attack, noting that buildings, vegetation and the road layout “matched satellite and archive imagery” of that location.
Putin Meeting with Staff Russian Federation Creation Commons Photo
Putin In Meeting Creative Commons Image
Video of the incident, which was widely distributed on social media, shows the man in his 50s running away from the drone and, eventually, an explosion. The man survived, but suffered shock and shrapnel injuries, the Reuters report said.
We have elected not to show the video in this article because it is graphic.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky expressed outrage in a social media post.
“Today, many were shocked by yet another video of the drone ‘safari’ Russians are carrying out against civilians in Kherson,” Zelensky said on X.
Ukraine’s police and Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha went on to denounce the attack as a “barbaric Russian war crime” and demanded international condemnation of it, while noting that “thousands of similar crimes never come to the public eye.” The operator of that drone, the foreign minister argued, must have known that it was chasing a civilian.
Is There Justice for “War Crimes” in This War?
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, as cited by Reuters, counted 1,396 civilian deaths and 7,978 injuries in the first six months of this year, a 37 percent increase over 2025 and a doubling of the figures from 2024.
The increase has been attributed to “intensifying Russian long-range missile and drone strikes,” which have extended further beyond the front lines.
In April of 2022, just weeks after the start of the war, the Council on Foreign Relations was already sounding the alarm about war crimes by Russia in the war, and asking whether Russian leaders could ever be tried for such crimes.
Beyond individual killings, the CFR analysis referenced the Russian invasion itself, which it said: “constitutes the crime of aggression under international law,” along the lines of charges filed against both the leaders of Nazi Germany at the Nuremberg trials and those of Japan in the Tokyo war crimes trials.
In March of 2023, a bit over a year into the war, the International Criminal Court issued warrants for both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Maria Alekseyevna Lvova-Belova, the Commissioner for Children’s Rights in Putin’s office.
Both were accused of the “war crime of unlawful deportation of population (children) and that of unlawful transfer of population (children) from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation.”
The warrant on Putin was the first ever issued for a sitting leader of a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council. In 2024, additional warrants were issued for several Russian military officers.
However, at least in part because Russia does not recognize the International Criminal Court’s jurisdiction, the warrants were never served, and no trial has taken place for Putin or any of the other officials.
A War Crimes Trial
However, Ukraine is preparing for one such trial that accuses Russians of drone-related crimes against humanity.
According to the Sunday Times, Ukraine, with some British legal help, is planning the first-ever trial of Russian officials for crimes against humanity, for “the alleged systematic use of drones to kill civilians,” in a way similar to the attack this week in Kherson.
Ukraine had previously brought charges against 912 Russians for different war crimes in recent years, the Times said, but this is the first trial in this war to allege crimes against humanity.
The Russians will be tried in absentia, in a rare war crimes trial to take place without the war being over. Ukrainian lawyers have been appointed to represent the Russian defendants.
One aim of the trial, the Times article said, is to collect legal documents and evidence and eventually pass them on to a body such as the International Criminal Court.
“If there are successful prosecutions in Ukraine, using sustainable evidence and a proper application of the law, it will spread to other territories,” Sir Howard Morrison, a former British judge at the ICC and a participant in the prosecutions, told the Times.
Kherson, where the attack took place this week, has been described as the “worst-hit area” in Ukraine.
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has authored thousands of articles that focus on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
