“I was six in 1942—or was it 1943?” says Svitlana. “I remember a shell swishing by and ducking to hide.”
Svitlana ducks. Small and neat, with shiny blue eyes and silver hair tucked under a purple-pink headscarf, she’s standing in the middle of what used to be her apartment. In the winter of 2022, another war came to her hometown, Nikopol, and a Russian artillery shell destroyed her place. The shock wave threw her family photos all the way up to the top floor, as her ceiling was gone.
“No more home,” Svitlana says. “But the photos survived.”
Kateryna, her neighbor, a robust and energetic woman in her late 70s, walks through the ruins of her apartment on the second floor. The shell hit when she was getting ready for bed, following the rule of staying behind “two walls” to avoid injuries from shrapnel and glass. She fell to the floor. Fire, smoke, dust and ashes filled the air, and when it all cleared, she saw she had no windows left.
With pensions of 3,700 hryvnias (US$88), the women now rent apartments for 1,000–2,000 hryvnias (US$23–$46) a month. Yet money is not their worst worry. They speak, interrupting each other, as they sit outside the ruined building in a grape and ivy-covered gazebo.
“We had 26 attacks here yesterday,” says Svitlana. “Artillery and drones. Drones buzz.”
“Like a washing machine,” says Kateryna. “We see them every day.”
“A drone has four legs,” adds Svitlana. “On top, it has devices to take photos.”
The residents of Nikopol are accustomed to artillery strikes. With Russian troops based across the Dnipro River at the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station only 4.2–6 kilometers away, daily attacks started in July 2022 and have never subsided. In 2024, Russian forces added “killer drones”—small FPV and Mavic drones—to their arsenal, bringing what is now known as “human safari” to Nikopol.
“For almost three years, Nikopol has been in an active war zone,” says Natalia Gorbolis, head of Nikopol’s city council executive committee. “We face daily shelling. Residents, educational institutions, buildings and medical facilities are under fire. In addition, we suffer from daily, 24/7 drone attacks. I believe their goal is psychological pressure.”
“Drones flew here before,” explains Kateryna. “But they never attacked us. They were just doing reconnaissance. We didn’t understand. We thought they were strange, moving stars. Later, we realized: drones.”
Vira, another neighbor—a friendly woman in her 60s, with short hair and a warm smile—joins the conversation. She lived on the first floor of the same building but was visiting her grown daughter by the river when the shell damaged the walls and ceilings of her apartment.
“My daughter’s house is by the port,” she says. “We run from the kitchen garden to hide at home all the time because drones are targeting us. It’s horrible. I was counting—six, eight drones. You step out, and one is flying over your head. There’s no military there.”
Vira describes drones in strangely endearing terms: They have “four little paws” and carry a deadly load dangling underneath. The drones drop their load, fly away and the load explodes. The explosions are deafening.
“We invite everyone to Nikopol,” say Kateryna and Svitlana. “Come see what’s happening.”
Their building is missing the top floor, but a rose garden blooms in front of it. It is late October, warm and sunny. A family is walking a black puppy, which chases a tabby cat up a tree to the sounds of artillery explosions. A woman picks up the puppy and says, “Our military rescues animals from the front line and brings them here.”
Her husband pats the puppy, glancing upward to check for drones.
“I already said goodbye to my life last week,” he says. “The drone was hovering above me, buzzing. Last week, a couple was walking to city hall, and a drone dropped a grenade right under their feet. Both died. They fly daily—sometimes 50 or 60—and target buildings, cars, factories and gas stations. Yesterday, one drone flew right into the window of a city administration building.”
Another artillery explosion rumbles close by.
“Yet, we stay. We have an old grandma who can’t go anywhere, and we can’t leave her. My kid doesn’t want to leave. I’m 50, I work at the factory. Where would I go?”
Across the park, Anna, a secretary, and her husband, Serhiy, a schoolteacher, also stay. They adopt cocker spaniels rescued from the front lines in other regions of Ukraine. One of the dogs belonged to their son, a soldier who died of a heart attack. Their younger son is in the army. The other eight dogs come from Bakhmut, Vovchansk, Kherson and other captured or embattled places. During walks in the park, Anna, beautiful and elegantly dressed, hides from the Russian drones under trees.
Oleksei, a retired police officer with a strong, open face, uses a walking stick. He was injured in 2023 when an artillery shell exploded about two meters away. He suffered multiple injuries and underwent several surgeries. Despite this, he volunteers to drive me to the historical center—the most dangerous part of town. Residents avoid the market and hospital there because the road is under constant drone attack.
“Drones attack cars, buses, minivans, gatherings and cell towers, dropping explosives,” Oleksei says. “A man I knew used to walk his dog along the Dnipro River. He was injured and died. Two women cleaning the street in the old part of town were also killed. About a week ago, a drone attacked a civilian car, killing an entire family.”
From July 2022 to October 2024, 61 people were killed and 465 wounded, according to the city authorities, who have not yet started a separate count for “human safari” casualties.
The downtown of Nikopol—home to 106,000 residents before the war—now looks like a ghost town, though about 55,000 remain. Oleksei drives off as parking is impossible due to drone threats. Tetiana, a youthful woman in her late 30s, wearing a green sports suit, signals me to step into the doorway.
“You just missed it,” she says. “A kamikaze drone.”
Unlike “skids,” drones that drop explosives, kamikaze drones drop and explode on impact.
“They fly here like it’s home—up to 15 or 20 a day,” Tetiana says as we take shelter in the only operating store nearby. “Sometimes, they just pass through. They can fly as far as 15 kilometers inland. Explosives from drones and kamikaze drones hit civilian infrastructure and coastal zones. Their goal is to set buildings on fire, cause maximum damage and leave us without power and water.”
Targeting electrical hubs to disrupt water pumps is another tactic, widely used in Kherson. Without water, residents cannot extinguish fires.
“Few people know about Nikopol,” Tetiana says. “Even in Ukraine. Frontline cities suffer not only from artillery and aerial bombs but also from drones. Small towns like ours need electronic warfare. For Russians, Nikopol is a shooting range for training—and for sowing panic.”
For pedestrians, the only way to avoid drone attacks is to hide inside or, if no shelter is available, under trees. For drivers, speed is the only defense.
Nadia, a mother of six and a social worker, survived a drone attack on her car by speeding away so just the back window was shattered, and her ears rang for a while. Not everyone is so lucky. Last week, a family was attacked by a drone in their car. A mother and daughter burned alive; the father and another child were severely injured.
“We live day by day,” says Nadia. “Every morning, we hug each other and say, ‘Good morning—we’re alive.’”
The drone assaults on Nikopol and other frontline towns and cities mark an unprecedented and underreported development in modern warfare: the deliberate targeting of civilians with small, low-cost drones.
The new term “human safari” refers to the systematic use of drones to kill and injure civilians; deploy incendiary devices to devastate homes, infrastructure and natural resources; and spread panic. This strategy aims to create unlivable conditions through ecocide and psychological warfare. It demands urgent international attention, accountability, and the development of new legislation.
