Russia is deliberately targeting Ukrainian civilians in a deadly drone strike campaign that aims to depopulate large parts of the country, according to a new United Nations report. The probe by UN human rights investigators found that Russia’s actions in southern Ukraine amount to the crimes against humanity of “murder and of forcible transfer of population.”
Fresh details of Russia’s war crimes against Ukraine’s civilian population were presented this week in a new report produced by the UN Human Rights Council-appointed Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine. The investigation focused on Russian drone attacks in an area spanning more than 300 kilometers on the right bank of the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine including parts of the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv provinces. Based on large quantities of publicly available video evidence and interviews with over 200 Ukrainian citizens, the report concluded that Russia was guilty of “systematically coordinated actions designed to drive Ukrainians out of their homes.”
Russian military drone operators in southern Ukraine were found to have routinely targeted individual Ukrainian civilians along with public transport, cars, private homes, and civilian infrastructure in a bid to establish a “permanent climate of terror.” At least two hundred Ukrainian civilians have reportedly been killed in these drone attacks since July 2024, while thousands more have been injured. Some are the targeted areas in southern Ukraine are now “almost entirely vacated.”
The UN investigation identified numerous instances on Russian attacks on first responders, including the bombing of ambulances and fire brigade crews attempting to provide emergency aid following earlier strikes. With sudden death from above now an everyday fact of life for the local population, residents of southern Ukraine say they feel hunted and refer to the relentless Russian drone attacks as a “human safari.”
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The drones deployed by the Russian military in this bombing campaign feature video cameras allowing operators to carefully select and track victims, confirming the deliberate and calculated nature of the killings. “All the types of short-range drones used in these attacks are equipped with live streaming cameras that focus on particular targets, leaving no doubt about the knowledge and intent of the perpetrators,” the UN report confirmed.
Russian intent it further underlined by the widespread practice of posting ghoulish video footage online celebrating drone attacks on Ukrainian civilians. These posts are often accompanied by menacing language and warnings for remaining Ukrainian residents to flee the area. “Russian military units often release videos of drone-eye views of civilians being killed, to be posted online by the units or groups affiliated with the Russian army, apparently as a means of amplifying the threat,” reports the New York Times.
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This new UN report underscores the industrial scale and systematic nature of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. Moscow’s efforts to displace the civilian population in the Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, and Mykolaiv provinces are only one part of a broader Kremlin campaign to render much of Ukraine unlivable. This depopulation strategy is designed to fuel anti-government sentiment within Ukrainian society and increase the pressure on the Kyiv authorities to capitulate, while also generating fresh waves of Ukrainian refugees and setting the stage for further Russian advances.
In addition to the human safari tactics employed in regions of southern Ukraine located close to the front lines, Russia is engaged in a nationwide bombing campaign of civilian infrastructure that aims to deny Ukrainians access to basic amenities such as heating, electricity, and running water. These attacks are part of a long-running airstrike offensive that escalates each year on the eve of the winter season as Russia seeks to weaponize subzero temperatures and freeze the Ukrainian population into submission.
Since the beginning of the current year, Moscow has also increased the terror bombing of residential districts and other civilian targets such as hospitals and kindergartens in cities across Ukraine. This is fueling a climate of fear and has resulted in a series of mass casualty attacks including a ballistic missile strike targeting Palm Sunday churchgoers in Sumy and the bombing of a park and children’s playground in Kryvyi Rih. Ukrainian civilian casualties surged by 31 percent year-on-year during the first nine months of 2025 due to this intensification of Russian drone and missile strikes.
In a separate probe conducted earlier this year, UN human rights investigators determined that Russia is also guilty of committing crimes against humanity targeting the civilian population in occupied regions of Ukraine. A report released in March 2025 found that Moscow’s large-scale program of illegal detentions and mass deportations throughout areas of Ukraine currently under Kremlin control was “perpetrated pursuant to a coordinated state policy and amounts to crimes against humanity.”
These United Nations findings make a complete mockery of Russia’s attempts to deny targeting Ukrainian civilians. While Kremlin officials frequently assert that the Russian army never deliberately conducts strikes on non-military objects and respects the human rights of noncombatants, overwhelming evidence identified by United Nations investigators demonstrates that Russia is in fact engaged in systematic and centrally coordinated efforts to attack Ukraine’s civilian population.
Russia’s use of drones to conduct a “human safari” in southern Ukraine marks a grim new milestone in the long history of Kremlin war crimes against civilians. UN investigators have now recognized this lethal drone campaign as a crime against humanity. Putin’s decision to target the Ukrainian civilian population in this coordinated manner is a reminder that the current Russian invasion is not only an attempt to destroy Ukraine as a state and as a nation; it is also an attack on the fundamental principles of international law.
Peter Dickinson is editor of the Atlantic Council’s UkraineAlert service.
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The views expressed in UkraineAlert are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Atlantic Council, its staff, or its supporters.
The Eurasia Center’s mission is to enhance transatlantic cooperation in promoting stability, democratic values, and prosperity in Eurasia, from Eastern Europe and Turkey in the West to the Caucasus, Russia, and Central Asia in the East.
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Image: The remains of a burned car sit on the roadside near anti-tank fortifications named 'dragon's teeth' and tetrapods, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, on the Mykolaiv-Kherson highway in the Kherson region, Ukraine July 24, 2025. (REUTERS/Ivan Antypenko)
