Nobody is Safe from Russian Drone Attacks

Like countless other parents around the world, you allow your kids to play with their friends at the local playground.

And then you hear the high-pitched whine of a drone, the explosion, the calamitous settling of debris and dust, and then the hysterical screams and cries of the survivors. As you run to the playground, you pray that the screams aren’t your child’s.

This terror is not unique for Ukrainians as the nation fights off Russian invaders. Very often, the aggressor targets non-military, civilian locations.

Russian forces struck a children’s playground in the Korabelnyi district of Kherson yesterday, May 27, injuring a mother and her two young daughters and killing the father of the family.

"A children's playground in the Korabelnyi district was apparently deemed a 'military target'... It was next to it that Russian terrorists launched a devastating strike today. An entire family has been affected by this cynical attack – a mother with her two young daughters aged three and six. The father has most likely been killed," reported Yaroslav Shanko, head of Kherson City Military Administration.

Since the start of the Russian full-scale war against Ukraine, the invaders have regularly absolved themselves of immoral collateral damage by claiming that the target was a military facility.

The injured included a 36-year-old woman and her two daughters, ages 3 and 6, local officials said. The girls' father was also killed in the attack, police later confirmed.

The strike occurred around 5:30 p.m. local time in the Korabelnyi district, where Russian forces fired multiple-launch rocket systems at a playground where families had gathered, according to Shanko.

The mother and her daughters suffered blast injuries and multiple shrapnel wounds and were receiving medical treatment, he said. A 50-year-old man was also injured.

Kherson is a port city in southern Ukraine that serves as the administrative centre of Kherson Oblast. Located by the Black Sea and on the Dnipro River, it is the home to a major ship-building industry and is a regional economic center.

Located near the front line in southern Ukraine, the city has faced frequent Russian attacks since Ukrainian forces retook the city in November 2022.

Russian drone attacks have intensified, with Russian drone operators deliberately targeting civilians in what has become cynically known as a “human safari.”