Ukraine documents 11,000 Russian FPV attacks on civilians, including “double strikes” on same site after medics and firefighters arrive
Ukraine has documented more than 11,000 Russian FPV-drone attacks on civilians since 2024. The Prosecutor General's Office has identified a systematic, intensifying pattern of strikes on residential areas, civilian transport, hospitals, and, most distinctively, repeat "double strikes" on the same location after medics, firefighters, and police arrive.
The drone attacks are classified by Ukrainian prosecutors as war crimes under international humanitarian law.
Russia launches 5,303 FPV-drone attacks on Kherson
The cumulative scale has grown from 2,427 criminal proceedings in 2024 to 6,771 in 2025, and to 2,010 in just the first four months of 2026 at a pace that will see 2026 exceed 2025's full-year total.
In peak periods, prosecutors register 45 to 50 new drone-attack proceedings per day. Of the total, 5,303 — nearly half — are concentrated in Kherson Oblast alone, where 287 civilians have been killed in drone strikes, including children, and 2,549 wounded.
The pattern of attacks on emergency responders is what most distinguishes the campaign from collateral civilian harm: targeted re-strikes on the same site once rescuers arrive.
Systematic FPV attacks on civilians
Prosecutors document the deliberate use of FPV drones against people in open spaces, at public transport stops, near residential buildings, and against minibusses, private cars, and other civilian transport with no military value.
The "double strike" tactic, a second drone targeting the same location after emergency services arrive, has produced 34 separate criminal proceedings for attacks on emergency-service personnel during the performance of their duties: 9 against State Emergency Service workers, 25 against medical staff.
Fifty-two medical workers have been injured in such attacks, three killed, and 20 rescuers have been injured.
A separate set of 95 criminal proceedings covers drone attacks on Ukrainian National Police personnel, in which 167 officers have been wounded and four killed during evacuations of civilians, responses to shelling, and routine patrols. The attacks have damaged 52 specialized vehicles — 44 emergency medical and 8 fire rescue.
Russia launches FPVs on children
In Kherson city alone, FPV-drone attacks on civilians have produced 127 deaths and 1,754 wounded, which is 44% of all Kherson Oblast drone-attack deaths and almost 69% of wounded.
Of the oblast's 2,549 drone-attack wounded, 41 are children. The Kherson concentration represents the most documented case of what Western media and Ukrainian officials have called Russia's "human safari" pattern: deliberate FPV-drone targeting of identifiable civilians in a single defined urban area, sustained over a period now exceeding a year.
The Prosecutor General's documentation presents the established and rising shape of how the Russian drone war against Ukrainian civilians is being conducted.
