Ukrainian authorities expressed outrage today at a video released by police showing a Ukrainian civilian being chased by a drone in Kherson, in the south of the country, denouncing it as a "deliberate Russian strategy", AFP reported, BTA reported.
In the footage, the authenticity of which has not been confirmed by AFP, a man in dark clothes runs around a car in the middle of the street, trying to escape from a FPV (First Person View) drone that is slowly following him before detonating its explosive charge.
Police say the 52-year-old man has injuries and a concussion.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Sibiga condemned the "barbaric war crime committed by Russia" and said that "thousands of such crimes never become public knowledge".
"This is a deliberate and systematic Russian strategy. They know exactly what they are doing," the minister said in Aix.
According to Ukrainian Ombudsman Dmytro Lubynets, the man seen in the video is "an unarmed market vendor". Lubinets accused the Russian army of "persecuting civilians".
The city of Kherson, which had about 280,000 inhabitants before the war, was under Russian control from March to November 2022. Russian forces, now on the other side of the Dnieper River that runs past the city, regularly shell it, mainly with drones, AFP noted.
More than four years after the start of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, strikes have intensified on both sides of the front, with the number of civilian casualties rising.
Russian authorities have also regularly accused the Ukrainian army of deliberately targeting civilians with drones, especially in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.