Russia’s drone attacks against civilians in Kherson oblast are coordinated state policy and a crime against humanity - UN Commission

The UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine has examined Russia’s persistent done attacks on civilians in Kherson oblast and concluded that these constitute crimes against humanity of murder.  In a special report, announced on 28 May 2025, the Commission presents evidence that such attacks are widespread, systematic and “conducted as part of a coordinated state policy.”  Russia has even targeted ambulances who arrived in response to earlier attacks.  The fact that videos of these attacks are circulated on Russian Telegram channels with warnings to get out suggests that this is deliberate Russian state policy aimed at driving out the Ukrainian population from territory that Russia has either not been able to seize or not been able to hold, but which it is still claiming to have annexed.

The Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine was created by the UN Human Rights Council soon after Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.  Its mandate has been extended several times, most recently 4 April 2025. 

The Commission have been prompted to issue a special report on drone attacks in Kherson oblast because of the huge number of such attacks since July 2024 and the clear grounds for viewing such flagrant violations of international law as deliberate state policy. 

Russia has been bombing civilian targets since the beginning of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine and has repeatedly carried out double-tap strikes – where a second missile, bomb or drone follows soon after the first, striking medical personnel and rescue workers who had rushed to the scene to save the first victims.  The NGO Truth Hounds earlier reported that they had verified 36 instances of double-tap strikes by Russia from February 2022 to 31 August 2024, with this very likely not the full number.

In documenting Russia’s systematic targeting of civilians and civilian objects in Kherson oblast since July 2024, the Commission cited examples where Russia had, still further, trampled on international law by targeting ambulances in just such double-tap drone strikes.  A 45-year-old had, for example, been injured in November 2024 when a drone dropped explosives as he was riding a moped.  Two explosives were dropped, minutes later, on the ambulance which arrived to treat his serious injuries.   The Commission points out that ambulances have special protection under international law and that some victims have died as a consequence of not being moved to a medical faculty in time because of Russia’s deliberate targeting of ambulances. 

The Commission’s focus in this report is on Russia’s ongoing drone attacks on civilians and civilian objects in Kherson itself and the Kherson oblast since July 2024.  The attacks have been widespread and systematic, following a regular pattern and modus operandi, indicating that they were “planned, directed and organized”.  Nearly 160 civilians have been killed so far in strikes along the hundred-kilometre area (on the right bank of the Dnipro), with hundreds injured. Civilians have reported that the Russians are “hunting them down like in a video game”.

All of this is an egregious violation of international law, with the  Commission concluding that the Russian military have committed the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians in Kherson oblast.

It is probably no accident that such atrocities are being committed on a daily basis against Ukrainians in Kherson and Kherson oblast. Kherson was the first major city to fall to the Russians in early 2022  Videos and photos of its liberation on 11 November 2022 and the joy shown by local residents were published all over the world.  They would have particularly riled Russian leader Vladimir Putin who had claimed in September 2022 that Ukrainians ‘had voted’ to join Russia.  He and his people are still claiming that even those parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia oblasts which are not under occupation also ‘became part of the Russian Federation’ back in 2022. 

It is unclear whether Putin doesn’t believe his own lies, or doesn’t care whom he kills.  Certainly Russia’s claim that all of Kherson oblast is ‘Russian’ has not stopped it from using drones to hunt down and drop explosives on civilians in the parts of Kherson oblast that it doesn’t control. It is possible that the savagery of the attacks since November 2022 against Kherson residents have been in reprisal for their unconcealed joy at liberation from Russian occupation.

The Commission do, however, point to clear policy with these constant drone attacks on civilians and on civilian infrastructure, aimed at terrorizing the population.  The objective is clearly to drive out the population, with many indeed unable to endure facing the danger of being killed or maimed whenever they leave their homes.

It is particularly chilling that the Russian military are coordinating these activities with Russian Telegram channels.  The Commission report that the drone operators use video feeds transmitted in real time by cameras embedded in the drones, with these focusing and dropping explosives on visibly civilian targets. These videos are then disseminated to Russian Telegram channels, some of them with thousands of subscribers, together with texts effectively telling civilians that they could be next.

The Commission’s assessment is damning.  “The recurrent drone attacks, the widely disseminated videos showing them, and numerous posts explicitly exhorting the population to leave suggest a coordinated state policy, on the part of the Russian authorities, to force the population of Kherson Province to leave the area. The Commission therefore concludes that Russian armed forces may have committed the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of population.”

This is in addition to the egregious targeting of civilians and civilian objects in violation of fundamental principles of international humanitarian law which clearly stipulate that any attacks are only admissible against military objects.   The Commission’s is clear that “the evidence collected leaves no doubt that the perpetrators intended to carry out these acts. The Commission therefore concludes that Russian armed forces perpetrated the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians in Kherson Province. It also finds that posting videos of civilians being killed and injured amounts to the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity. “

The fact that these attacks have been continuing for over ten months, against multiple civilian targets and over a large area makes it clear that they are planned and organization, with this requiring the necessary resources to be allocated.  “These and other elements led the Commission to conclude that Russian armed forces carried out drone attacks targeting civilians pursuant to an organisational policy and committed murder as a crime against humanity.”

So what next? 

All of the Independent Commission’s reports have been hard-hitting, and identified the gravest of crimes that Russia has been committing against Ukraine and Ukrainian citizens, both civilians and prisoners of war.   It is to be hoped that, at very least, this latest report on Russian atrocities against civilians will prompt the International Criminal Court to issue arrest warrants against those behind such coordinated state policy.  That alone, however, is clearly not enough, and it is vital that all democratic countries understand that the cost of not adequately helping Ukraine to stop Russia now will not be borne by Ukraine alone.