A clearly marked UN humanitarian convoy was struck by Russian FPV drones in Kherson on 14 May, according to the UN and regional authorities. The UN says it cannot identify who carried out the attack.
Russian forces regularly carry out drone strikes on civilians and infrastructure in Kherson, which lies across the Dnipro River from Russian-occupied territory and remains one of the most dangerous cities in Ukraine.
After the incident, Russian Telegram channels released FPV drone footage showing a strike on vehicles marked with UN insignia.
UN fails to name the perpetrator of the strike
“I don’t know who did the attack,” said Andrea de Domenico, head of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Ukraine, who was travelling with the mission at the time.
The convoy was delivering aid to civilians in one of Kherson’s hardest-hit areas when it was struck by two FPV drones. The team later evacuated the site.
UNHCR representative, Bernadette Castel-Hollingsworth, again refused to name the perpetrator of the attack, saying “both Russian and Ukrainian authorities had, as usual, been informed in advance of this humanitarian mission.”
“I am alarmed by the repeated instances of violence against humanitarian workers that raise questions about the adherence to International Humanitarian Law,” she added, again failing to name the guilty party.
She said this was the second such incident within a week, after another marked UN vehicle was hit while delivering aid in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
Russian drones hunt civilians, terrorize Kherson with “human safari”
Ukrainian officials say strike was deliberate Russian attack
Kherson Oblast Military Administration head Oleksandr Prokudin said he spoke with the UN delegation shortly after the incident.
“I spoke with the delegation of @UNOCHA, whose vehicle was hit by two Russian drones shortly before our meeting. The enemy deliberately attacked the humanitarian mission’s vehicle while it was delivering aid to Kherson,” Prokudin said.
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Russian channels publish FPV footage of the strike
The drone footage of the strike was circulated by the “From Mariupol to the Carpathians” channel, which regularly publishes footage of Russian drone operations in Kherson.
The accompanying post frames the convoy as a “dual-use target,” a justification frequently used by Russian sources to describe attacks on civilian or humanitarian vehicles.
The video was deleted from the channel, but is visible in a Telegram archive.
FPV “human safari” strikes in Kherson
Since Ukraine’s liberation of the right bank of Kherson in 2022, the city has remained under sustained Russian FPV drone pressure from across the Dnipro River, with operators targeting civilian vehicles, emergency services, and aid convoys in repeated strike waves described locally as a “human safari” campaign.
Despite clear markings and prior coordination of humanitarian movements, aid routes through Kherson have continued to be hit in a pattern Ukrainian officials and residents describe as systematic drone hunting of civilians and support teams operating in the city.
