A six-year-old girl has died from wounds sustained during a Russian artillery attack on Kherson's Dniprovskyi district on 3 December, Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Oblast Military Administration, announced on Facebook on 4 December.
The child and her father were inside their home when the shells struck around 21:30.
Kherson, liberated by Ukrainian forces in November 2022, has endured relentless Russian bombardment ever since. Russian troops positioned on the Dnipro's east bank have shelled the oblast over 39,000 times in 2024 alone, firing approximately 212,000 shells and killing 251 people, including one child, while wounding 1,838 residents. Apart from this, Russian soldiers hunt civilians in what local residents have labeled a "drone safari."
Doctors fought to save her
Medical teams worked to save the girl, but her injuries proved too severe, Prokudin said. Her 49-year-old father was hospitalized in moderate condition with blast trauma and shrapnel wounds to his pelvis.
Ukrainian prosecutors have opened a war crimes investigation under Article 438 of the Criminal Code, which carries penalties up to life imprisonment. Investigators confirmed that father and daughter were inside their residence when the artillery struck.
A city under siege
The city's population has collapsed from nearly 270,000 before the full-scale invasion to less than a quarter of that today. Those who remain have learned to count time between explosions.
Beyond artillery, Kherson residents face what they call "human safari"—small FPV drones that hunt pedestrians through the streets before dropping explosives on them. The UN has confirmed these drone attacks constitute crimes against humanity.
American journalist Zarina Zabrisky, who first reported on the "human safari" for international audiences in July 2024, documented nearly two years of life under Russian fire in her documentary Kherson: Human Safari. The film captures the daily reality of a city where windows are covered with plywood, streets are draped with anti-drone nets, and stepping outside can be fatal.
