American war correspondent Zarina Zabrisky received Ukraine's Order of Merit, 3rd Class, by decree signed by President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on 5 June 2026. The award was issued on the occasion of Ukrainian Journalist Day.
Zabrisky, who reports for Euromaidan Press and Byline Times, was cited for "high professional skill and dedication" covering Russia's full-scale invasion. She was the first journalist to bring Russia's "human safari" — drone attacks on civilians in Kherson — to international attention, in a July 2024 dispatch for Byline Times.
Years on the ground in Kherson
Zabrisky arrived in Kherson with other war correspondents on the third day after the city's liberation in November 2022. She has filed from the Kherson region almost continuously since. Her work for Euromaidan Press has documented Russia's systematic drone attacks on civilians, the aftermath of the Kakhovka dam destruction, and the daily life of a city whose residents named what was happening to them.
Her July 2024 first dispatch on the human safari was followed by continued EP coverage through 2024 and 2025. By May 2025, she could write: "The UN confirmed what I saw in Kherson: Russia is hunting civilians for sport."
The Russian Foreign Ministry added Zabrisky to its sanctions "stop list" in August 2025, banning her from ever entering Russia.
The documentary
Between September 2023 and June 2025, Zabrisky directed and produced Kherson: Human Safari, a 72-minute documentary built entirely from original footage and interviews with Kherson residents. The composer who wrote the score had been a partisan during the Russian occupation. The director of photography is a native of Kherson.
The film is structured around seven chapters: invasion, occupation, protests, liberation, shelling, flood, and human safari. It is available to watch free at khersonhumansafari.com.
Euromaidan Press reviewed the film in August 2025. Reviewer Kostiantyn Doroshenko called it "a fantastic horror movie… our reality."
Inside Human Safari: the film that captures Russia’s drones hunting Ukrainians like prey
On Journalist Day
Zabrisky was among 37 Ukrainian and foreign journalists named in Presidential Decree №482/2026, issued on 5 June 2026 for Ukrainian Journalist Day. The decree honored correspondents from Bloomberg News, CNN International, Liberation, Welt, Radio France Internationale, and Ukrainian outlets including 1+1, LB.ua, Babel, and the National Union of Journalists of Ukraine.
The citation read: "significant personal contribution to the development of national journalism and the information sphere, high professional skill and dedication shown during the coverage of events of the Russian Federation's full-scale invasion of the territory of Ukraine."
The Kherson dispatches of Zarina Zabrisky
An American war correspondent reporting for Euromaidan Press from Kherson. On 6 June 2026, Ukraine awarded her the Order of Merit; Russia had already placed her on an entry-ban list for the same work. Her feature documentary, Kherson: Human Safari, grows out of the reporting gathered here.
The "human safari"
2024 – 2026One reporter following a single atrocity over two years—from the dispatch that named it, to the UN inquiry tracing it to the Kremlin. Read top to bottom, it is a timeline.
-
10 August 2024 the dispatch that named itRussian drones hunt civilians, terrorize Kherson with "human safari"
Residents describe drones that give no time to run for cover, in a city Russia has pummeled since its liberation.
-
13 August 2024Russian drones now drop anti-personnel landmines on civilians in Kherson
The hunt escalates: drones begin scattering Lepestok mines across what remains of the civilian population.
-
27 March 2025"First they shell, then they hunt": Russia's savage new civilian terror strategy debuts in Kherson
A double-tap method—shelling draws people into the open, then drones hunt the ambulances and first responders.
-
28 May 2025The UN confirmed what I saw in Kherson: Russia is hunting civilians for sport
Walking the streets where it happens, as UN investigators rule the campaign a war crime. "It was systematic hunting."
-
23 September 2025Highway of fire: Russian drones turn Kherson's lifeline road into a death trap
On the road in and out of the city, the drone siege turns every car ride into a death lottery.
-
11 November 2025 interviewUN traces Kherson's "human safari" up the chain of command — to Putin himself
Erik Møse, chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry, on tracing the drone terror from operators on the Dnipro to the Kremlin.
-
16 March 2026Mined in, starved out, hunted from above—life in the towns Russia demands at the peace table
In occupied Oleshky, drone trainees use food queues as practice targets—in the very towns Russia wants at the table.
From the front
2024 – 2025Her wider reporting from Kherson and the southern front—mines, demining, improvised artillery, and the engineers rewriting drone warfare.
-
30 June 2025"Every object is a maybe." Russia's cheapest traps are killing Ukraine's scarce bomb experts
A sapper points to a phone and a Sprite can. In Kherson, he lost his foot finding out which was which.
-
5 June 2025Inside the secret workshops where Ukraine's hipster engineers build killer drones
In a bunker near the front, young engineers turn $300 drones into tank-killers—and rewrite the rules of the war.
-
5 January 2025Kherson under brutal assault as Russia plans a new offensive
Living in Kherson means counting time between explosions—a barrage that masks preparations for a new push.
-
14 September 2024Ukraine deploys demining drones to break Russia's Dnipro wall
Self-taught operators with DIY tactics clear the mined river—the linchpin in the battle for the Dnipro.
-
12 July 2024Can Ukraine cancel Russia's imperial history? Odesa debates decolonization
In Odesa, a debate over imperial trauma and whether—and how—to undo Russia's cultural inheritance.
-
11 June 2024Fifty-year-old howitzers crack under strain in Ukraine's Kharkiv defense
Recycled shells and aging guns keep the 57th brigade firing—but the strain is starting to tell.
-
12 April 2024Ukrainian soldiers hold back Russian onslaught with scavenged 1950s howitzer, DIY shells
Amid a dire shell shortage, fighters near Kherson find a lifeline in a captured Soviet howitzer and homemade rounds.
Kherson: Human Safari
Zabrisky's 2025 feature documentary follows the city through occupation, liberation, ecocide, and the drone war on its residents—the story she has been filing from the ground for two years.
The Kherson dispatches of Zarina Zabrisky
An American war correspondent reporting for Euromaidan Press from Kherson. On 6 June 2026, Ukraine awarded her the Order of Merit; Russia had already placed her on an entry-ban list for the same work. Her feature documentary, Kherson: Human Safari, grows out of the reporting gathered here.
The "human safari"
2024 – 2026One reporter following a single atrocity over two years—from the dispatch that named it, to the UN inquiry tracing it to the Kremlin. Read top to bottom, it is a timeline.
-
10 August 2024 the dispatch that named itRussian drones hunt civilians, terrorize Kherson with "human safari"
Residents describe drones that give no time to run for cover, in a city Russia has pummeled since its liberation.
-
13 August 2024Russian drones now drop anti-personnel landmines on civilians in Kherson
The hunt escalates: drones begin scattering Lepestok mines across what remains of the civilian population.
-
27 March 2025"First they shell, then they hunt": Russia's savage new civilian terror strategy debuts in Kherson
A double-tap method—shelling draws people into the open, then drones hunt the ambulances and first responders.
-
28 May 2025The UN confirmed what I saw in Kherson: Russia is hunting civilians for sport
Walking the streets where it happens, as UN investigators rule the campaign a war crime. "It was systematic hunting."
-
23 September 2025Highway of fire: Russian drones turn Kherson's lifeline road into a death trap
On the road in and out of the city, the drone siege turns every car ride into a death lottery.
-
11 November 2025 interviewUN traces Kherson's "human safari" up the chain of command — to Putin himself
Erik Møse, chair of the UN Commission of Inquiry, on tracing the drone terror from operators on the Dnipro to the Kremlin.
-
16 March 2026Mined in, starved out, hunted from above—life in the towns Russia demands at the peace table
In occupied Oleshky, drone trainees use food queues as practice targets—in the very towns Russia wants at the table.
From the front
2024 – 2025Her wider reporting from Kherson and the southern front—mines, demining, improvised artillery, and the engineers rewriting drone warfare.
-
30 June 2025"Every object is a maybe." Russia's cheapest traps are killing Ukraine's scarce bomb experts
A sapper points to a phone and a Sprite can. In Kherson, he lost his foot finding out which was which.
-
5 June 2025Inside the secret workshops where Ukraine's hipster engineers build killer drones
In a bunker near the front, young engineers turn $300 drones into tank-killers—and rewrite the rules of the war.
-
5 January 2025Kherson under brutal assault as Russia plans a new offensive
Living in Kherson means counting time between explosions—a barrage that masks preparations for a new push.
-
14 September 2024Ukraine deploys demining drones to break Russia's Dnipro wall
Self-taught operators with DIY tactics clear the mined river—the linchpin in the battle for the Dnipro.
-
12 July 2024Can Ukraine cancel Russia's imperial history? Odesa debates decolonization
In Odesa, a debate over imperial trauma and whether—and how—to undo Russia's cultural inheritance.
-
11 June 2024Fifty-year-old howitzers crack under strain in Ukraine's Kharkiv defense
Recycled shells and aging guns keep the 57th brigade firing—but the strain is starting to tell.
-
12 April 2024Ukrainian soldiers hold back Russian onslaught with scavenged 1950s howitzer, DIY shells
Amid a dire shell shortage, fighters near Kherson find a lifeline in a captured Soviet howitzer and homemade rounds.
Kherson: Human Safari
Zabrisky's 2025 feature documentary follows the city through occupation, liberation, ecocide, and the drone war on its residents—the story she has been filing from the ground for two years.
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