Every day, Ukrainian civilians near the front lines suffer under Russian drone attacks
CBC
In Nikopol, Ukraine, even fire trucks aren't safe from hostile drones.
That's why two of the city's newest fire trucks have anti-drone jammers mounted on them.
A German non-profit group, Ukraine-Hilfe Berlin, donated the trucks and jammers to help replace vehicles and equipment lost in drone attacks.
"Russian drones have been attacking fire-trucks in Nikopol ... for some time now," and have wounded some firefighters, said Vitali Olijnik, a member of the group, via email.
Nikopol sits on the north shore of the Dnipro River across from an occupied portion of Ukraine, meaning the city and its residents are in easy range of incoming drones. The same is true of the city of Kherson, on the same side of the river, about 200 kilometres southwest.
"Apart from artillery fire and missiles, there are a lot of drones which attack [Kherson] on a daily basis," Tatyana Orgakova of the Ukraine Media Crisis Center said in a recent video after visiting the city.
A local paramedic told the Globe and Mail he receives 10 calls per day about drone attacks on civilians.
Mounting reports from Ukrainian areas along the front lines say civilians are frequently being hurt or killed by Russian drones. The United Nations says "a large portion" of civilian casualties in front-line areas last month involved drones — including roughly half of those in the Ukraine-controlled parts of the region of Kherson.
"This is, tragically, a daily reality for Ukrainians," said Wayne Jordash of Global Rights Compliance, a non-governmental organization focused on human rights.
"Every day, Ukrainian prosecutors' offices open criminal cases concerning the suspected use of drones in violation of international humanitarian law," Jordash told CBC News by email, referring to the intentional targeting of civilians or when aggressors fail to make the necessary distinctions when attacking.
Some reports cite the use of small, first-person view (FPV) drones, which can be rigged to drop explosives on targets below.
Jordash says FPV drones "are an incessant threat" for civilians living near front-line areas, where some have reported "being subjected to sadistic 'human safaris' in which they are the target of Russian forces hunting them down."
Russia launched its wide-ranging invasion of Ukraine 32 months ago, leaving both sides in all-out conflict ever since.
Ukraine has increasingly looked to drones to strike back, using an assortment of types to hit targets near and far from the front lines.
