Small, silent, deadly Drones equipped with explosives hunt down Ukrainian civilians
Ukrainians are facing a new aerial threat in Russia's war of aggression, which has killed 24 civilians and injured hundreds more in Kherson alone since July: explosive drones on a manhunt.
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- A new danger from the air is threatening the civilian population in Kherson: drones equipped with explosives are scattering grenades and treacherous mini-mines across the city.
- The problem: the killer aircraft are too small and fly too low for Ukrainian air defenses to detect them.
- Since July, there have been thousands of attacks every month, killing 24 civilians and injuring hundreds in Kherson.
Sasha Ustenko has survived three attacks by Russian drones patrolling the streets of Kherson with fragmentation grenades and dropping them on anything that moves. The first attack targeted a parked police car in the center of Kherson at the end of July, just as Ustenko was walking past, and knocked him to the ground, he tells theGuardian.
The second explosives drone hit a drinking water tanker in mid-August as it was waiting in the queue for supplies, killing the driver. Ustenko suffered a concussion in the incident.
The third time, in late September, he heard the killer flying object buzzing overhead and ran to seek shelter under the branches of a cherry tree. He hoped the leaves would hide him, but the shell crashed through the canopy and landed barely a meter away. The explosion tore his left index finger apart. As he is left-handed, he is now learning to write with his other hand again at the age of 51.
When he speaks, his sentences sometimes sink under the effect of multiple concussions, and he finds it difficult to stand up because his back has been repeatedly injured by the blasts.
Air defense cannot detect the mini-drones
Two years after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, civilians in the frontline city of Kherson are battling a new threat from small civilian drones designed to carry explosives.
Since the aircraft began bombing the city in July, there have been thousands of attacks every month, killing 24 civilians and injuring hundreds more. Shells rained down on buses and people waiting at bus stops, on cyclists and people queuing for humanitarian aid or, like Ustenko, on their way home from shopping.
The perfidious thing is that the converted Mavic drones are too small and fly too low for Ukrainian air defenses to detect them. They are manufactured in China for photo and video recording and are controlled on radio frequencies that Ukraine's anti-drone systems cannot block.
In August, there were more than 2,500 attacks, the vast majority of them within the city of Kherson, says Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, a spokesman for the Kherson military administration. In September there were more than 2700 attacks. Between July 1 and October 11, drones injured more than 400 civilians, including seven children. Many of these injuries resulted in amputations.
"Drones are much worse than artillery"
Dima Olifirenko, a sailor stranded in his home town of Kherson due to the war, was also the victim of an explosive drone attack. He has a row of stitches on the edge of his cheek next to his ear from a grenade explosion next to a bus stop. "I heard the drone coming when the bus arrived, but I thought it was following the bus because that's what they do, they chase the buses," he says. "But when the bus left, the drone was still there and I realized that even if I ran after the bus, it would catch me. There was nowhere to hide."
Moments later, there was an explosion that left one side of his body covered in shrapnel. Olifirenko stopped another bus to go to hospital and a passenger gave him her jacket to stop the bleeding, he tells the British daily. It took him almost an hour to get to the hospital.
Many residents had become more or less accustomed to life in the war with the constant threat of shelling, but the killer drones have brought new fear into everyday life. "Drones are much worse than artillery, you can hear the launch and the direction of flight," said Olifirenko. "With a drone, death is suddenly there, it sees you and you're done for."
The river makes Kherson vulnerable to drone attacks
In Kherson, the Dnipro River forms the front line. It separates the Ukrainian and Russian armed forces on both sides. This circumstance has protected the city from an all-out Russian offensive, as an attack across a wide river is extremely difficult. However, as this natural barrier allows tens of thousands of civilians to live just a few kilometers away from Russian forces, it also makes the city particularly vulnerable to drone attacks.
The range of the new type of explosive drones is up to 15 kilometers, allowing them to fly across the river and back. They are small and cheap enough for Russia to deploy a large number of them. And while it might be difficult for the killer devices to track down military targets on well-camouflaged front lines, it is easy to find and hit civilians in everyday life.
"This is a systematic, well-planned operation to destroy civilian life in Kherson," says Serhii Kuzan, chairman of the think tank Ukrainian Center for Security and Cooperation and former advisor to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense. "The aim of this hybrid warfare is not to win on the battlefield, but to destroy the civilian population so that the government either negotiates or surrenders."
Recently, drones have been scattering mines around the city
Some drones have recently been scattering small anti-personnel mines in streets and public places. The mines are less than ten centimeters long and contain about 40 grams of explosives - enough to cut off the hand or foot of anyone who picks one up or steps on it.
Ustenko no longer harvests vegetables from the field he has planted behind his house. "I'm afraid to go into the garden because there are so many weeds that could hide mines." As no deminers dared to enter the endangered neighborhoods, the locals have developed their own highly amateurish demining techniques, says Olifirenko. Some people shoot at the mines with shotguns, others try to hit them with bricks. The most methodical way is with long wooden planks. "You lie down on the ground, protect your face with your arms and push the board towards the mine until it explodes."
The only kind of air defense that Ukrainian civilians can currently rely on is the weather - the killer drones have bad cards in rain and strong winds.
