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The Kherson Region: How Russia Uses Civilians as a Tool of War

MeidasTouch Network Jul 2

Guest article by Zarina Zabrisky, Meidas Defense’s Kherson-based correspondent

An American journalist, writer, and filmmaker from San Francisco, Zarina Zabrisky moved to Ukraine at the start of the full-scale invasion, and has been reporting from Kherson city since its liberation in November 2022. In 2024, as the only foreign journalist based there, she was the first to document “human safari,” the Russian tactic of FPV drones targeting civilians. For her work, she has been sanctioned by Russia and awarded by Ukraine. Working on her upcoming documentary, a sequel to her first critically acclaimed Kherson, Human Safari, Zabrisky discovered an underreported genocide.

Two Classmates

Volodymyr and Olena grew up together in Olehsky, a resort town on the Dnipro. In winter 2026, after Olena’s house burned, her mother was killed by artillery, and her husband died without proper medical care, she moved into Volodymyr’s basement, where his family lived with no heat. Volodymyr, a biology teacher and beekeeper, had previously survived torture in a Russian prison for his pro-Ukrainian stance. They were running out of food, so Volodymyr drove mined roads under drone surveillance to deliver supplies, losing three cars to mines.

In March, Volodymyr, his wife Yulia, Olena, and their pets crossed Russian checkpoints through roads lined with destroyed vehicles, mines, and drones. Volodymyr and family went to the Cherhihiv region, but Olena went to Kherson. As she told her story, a Russian drone struck a building next door.

“I don’t want to leave,” she said. “I can see Oleshky from here. This is my land.”

One Crisis, Two Banks of the River

Nearly 70,000 civilians in Ukraine’s Kherson region suffer from a humanitarian crisis on both sides of the Dnipro River.

On the Ukrainian-controlled right bank, around 60,000 civilians in Kherson city and nearby communities live under daily attacks from Russian FPV drones, artillery, mortars, tanks, guided aerial bombs, and missiles launched from positions across the river. There, on the Russian-occupied left bank, an estimated 5,000 to 6,000 people remain with no food, water, medicine, fuel, communications, or medical care. Evacuation routes are blocked by mines, drone activity, and restrictions imposed by occupation authorities.

Separated by the Dnipro River, the two banks suffer from the same Russian strategy. Civilians on the left bank are immobilized and isolated by a drone siege, while civilians on the right bank are terrorized by continuous “human safari” attacks.

Drone Siege and Human Shield

Before the full-scale invasion, approximately 40,000 people lived in the occupied part of the Kherson region, according to the statement of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine. Today, that number is estimated at around 6,000. The population of Oleshky city has decreased from about 24,000 residents to roughly 2,000. The decline reflects ongoing hostilities in the frontline zone, occupation policies, and the aftermath of the Nova Kakhovka dam explosion in 2023, which flooded settlements, damaged farmland, and destroyed homes and public infrastructure.

Those who remain are trapped: Russian forces prevent evacuation as they use the civilian population as a human shield against Ukrainian military operations. According to Olena and Volodymyr, Russian soldiers shelter in civilian homes during Ukrainian artillery and drone strikes.

To hold the remaining civilians in place, Russian forces employ a drone siege: roads are controlled by drones and mined from the air. As a result, no food, fuel, medicine, or humanitarian supplies have reached the city regularly since late 2025.

According to local volunteer Ksenia Arkhipova, no vehicles have entered or left Oleshky since late May. Food and fuel supplies are exhausted. The local hospital operates on a generator and is running out of gasoline. Sixty patients are not treated properly. The number of casualties continues to grow.

Communication lines are jammed. For Volodymyr and Olena, contacting anyone left behind is hard as their neighbors can be arrested for a phone call. Both knew people who had disappeared.

Oleshki Aerial View

Human Safari

FPV drone attacks on civilians in the Ukrainian-controlled part of the Kherson region have been documented since 2024 and are known as a human safari.

Since the liberation of Kherson city in November 2022, Russian forces have maintained positions across the river. From those positions, they conduct attacks against civilian areas throughout the region. According to Ukrainian prosecutors, FPV drone attacks have become the leading cause of civilian casualties in frontline communities. The strikes target pedestrians, cyclists, bus stops, civilian vehicles, residential streets, shops, and emergency responders.

Ukrainian officials report up to 5,000 FPV drone attacks weekly in the Kherson region. In June 2026, a Russian Molniya drone struck a supermarket in Kherson, killing and injuring civilians, including a 17-year-old girl. The attack followed public threats circulated through Russian military-linked Telegram channels against grocery stores in the city.

Human Rights Watch and United Nations investigators have concluded that human safari constitutes war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The same tactic extends to the occupied territory across the river, where Russian FPV drone attacks terrorize Ukrainians. The logic may be elusive, but it is explained by the Russian strategy to control the population by instilling fear.

A car on fire after a drone attack

A Laboratory of Warfare

The Kherson region provides insight into the future of warfare by demonstrating how inexpensive technologies can be combined with methods of occupation and control. A drone costing hundreds of dollars can close roads, disrupt logistics, limit movement, and spread fear across entire communities. Drone warfare, information control, and occupation policy are synced to manage the population.

Russian FPV drone attacks target civilians on the Ukrainian-controlled right bank of the Kherson region, using fear as a means to force civilians out and depopulate the territory. On the occupied left bank, drones instill fear, which serves here as a tool to control the remaining population. The ultimate objective is demographic change. Weaponizing fear is Russia’s trademark policy, from Soviet deportations and labor camps to imprisonment and political repression under Vladimir Putin.

An aerial photo of the cemetery in Oleshki

The Immediate Need

For Ukraine, the immediate priority is the evacuation of the civilians from the coastal areas of the occupied Kherson region. Ukrainian authorities are working with the International Committee of the Red Cross on proposals for safe evacuation corridors from occupied settlements and for the delivery of food, water, medicine, fuel, and medical assistance.

As of late June, no permanent humanitarian corridor has been established. Each day that passes leaves civilians trapped on one side of the river and exposed to attacks on the other.

Guest article by Zarina Zabrisky, Meidas Defense’s Kherson-based correspondent

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