Hunted From Above

Script 

Host: Let's say you're a civilian living in a war zone and you're always on alert for possible danger. Which of these sounds do you think would scare you the most? 

[SFX: helicopter approaching] 

That's sound number 1. For Americans, it's hard not to think of the war in Vietnam... 

[SFX: fighter jet overflight] 

That's sound number 2. OK, terrifying. 

[SFX: artillery incoming] 

Sound number 3. Yeah, get me out of here. 

[SFX: quadcopter drone] 

And this sound, sound number 4, it may not sound scary but it will after you listen to this episode. For the residents in and around the Ukrainian city of Kherson, this is the scariest sound of them all. 

[SFX: drone] 

It's the unmistakeable sound of a tiny quadcopter drone. Quad – copter. It’s a helicopter-like flying machine with four electric rotors. They are off the shelf, they're inexpensive, you or I could buy them to film, I don’t know, a wedding or a sporting event, but when they're armed with explosives, they become a deadly weapon. And they’ve been used extensively by both sides on the Russia-Ukraine war. In Kherson, though, Russian forces have been using quadcopter drones to target and kill civilians. 

[SFX: from video] 

Like everything else that happens these days, there are videos. Of Russian drones attacking Ukrainian civilians, who sometimes capture the terror and the carnage with their phones... 

[SFX: more from video] 

Could what we’re seeing in Ukraine be the future of modern warfare? And how should the world respond? 

This is Rights & Wrongs, a podcast from Human Rights Watch. I'm Ngofeen Mputubwele. I am a writer, a lawyer, and a radio producer. Human Rights Watch asked me to look at human rights hotspots around the world through the eyes and ears of people on the front lines of history. 

This week, Hunted From Above: Russia's Use of Drones to Attack Civilians, and what it might tell us about the future of war. 

Olga: Мене звуть Чернишова Ольга Ольга Леонідівна, мені 39 років мешкаю в місті Херсон. [ fade under] 

Host: Olga Chernushova is a 39 year old lifelong resident of Kherson. a city in the south of Ukraine, not far from Russian-occupied Crimea. It's on the northern bank of the Dnipro River. This geographical detail is super important if we're going to understand what's happening here, because while Ukrainian forces control the northern bank of the river, Russian forces are positioned on the southern bank. It wasn't always this way. 

Olga: я була в Херсоні коли російські війська зайшли в місті Весь час окупація перебувала в Херсоні і нікуди не виїжджала. 

Host: Olga says she was there in Kherson when Russian troops overran it, in January 2022. She was there during the Russian occupation, and she was there when Ukrainian forces pushed the Russians out of the city, in November of that same year. She lived close to the Dnipro River. And this was an extremely dangerous place to be. First there was the artillery. Then, starting in the summer of 2024, the drones. 

Olga: Так саме таки жахливе. Це було десь, зараз, ноябр місяць Почало ноября. Я переходила дорогу їздила на маршрутці, переходила дорогу зустрічала сусіда, [ fade under] 

Olga_English: It happened in November 2024 I was crossing the road. And then I saw, , my neighbor, who was together with his wife, and she was on a wheelchair. So, we started, uh, to talk, we started to go along the quite big road. 

And we heard, the sound of the drone coming to us. 

So all three of us, myself, the man, and he also had to take his wife on the wheelchair. So we ran and we hid under the trees, and the drone was buzzing around the tree. So we were standing there, and we also realized sometimes drones, if they know that there are people under the tree they can attack around it just to hurt the people. So we were trying to run away from it, through this alley of the trees, through, you know, there is sometimes like a green alley with the grass and with the trees. So, we were running along this alley. Just to be hidden behind the trees and the branches. 

So we were able to escape the drones. 

Host: Let me just say here, this sort of thing happened a lot to Olga. She’s got a lot of stories like this, like the time just a few months ago when she was driving on a road that was known to be infested with Russian drones... 

Olga: він вже хотів летіти за мною. Це якраз коли у нас зараз просто трасу перекривають часто, тому що за машинами дуже багато охотяться дронів. [fade under] 

Olga_English: And suddenly I saw. On the right of me, on the level of the car, on the level, basically of a driver, the drone approaching me from the field. 

Host: She hit the gas, and managed, yet again, to escape the drone. Yet each escape takes its toll. 

Olga: Зсередині ти В середині перше що коли в машині навіщо ти поїхав? Ти ж знав що дрони,навіщо було їхати. Чому саме я? 

Olga_English: The first thing that I thought was, ‘Why did I go anywhere? Why me? Why, knowing everything that is happening, I even tried to go through this road? Why did I do it?’ And then you just cannot realize that this is what is happening to you. This is the drone that just wants to attack you. You just cannot believe this. 

And then when i was standing under the tree uh, first thing is you are thinking where you need to hide. You are not thinking about what you did wrong in your life, or you are not saying goodbye to your life. You're not just preparing to be dead, but you feel the fear inside of you. And then you start thinking, ‘why didn't I leave?’ 

Then you feel kind of like an apathy to everything you feel like, nothing. And then, then you feel fear. The fear is very big. 

Alexei: Well, of course you don't wear any headphones. You don't listen to music. You listen to the skies, that's how we talk about it. We are much more attentive and if we hear anything, we just hide. 

Host: This is Alexei Sandakov. He's also a Kherson native. He lived through the Russian bombardment of the city, and then the drone attacks. And he says there is something different about the drones. 

Alexei: With artillery, you know, it comes in waves, it will belike 2, 3, 4, 6 incoming shells, and then that's it. It's either suppressed, or they run out of shells. 

With drones, you know this thing is around, it sees you. You never know if it's a Ukrainian drone or a hostile drone. You never know what the shell is. You never know if it's an FPV and it will just fly into you. 

Host: ...FPV, that means first person vision, meaning it has a video camera and someone is directing the drone remotely... 

Alexei: ... and it'll deliver one kilo gram of TNT and just devastating... even if you're in the armored vehicle. 

Host: Alexei helped translate interviews that Human Rights Watch did with Ukrainians in and around Kherson. 

Alexei: I'm a lawyer by profession. 

Host: He lives in an area of the city that's far enough from Russian forces that drone attacks are less common, but his work and his life frequently bring him into more exposed areas. 

Alexei: Well, the closer it gets to the river, the more dangerous it becomes. A week ago I went to the Niproski market. It's. Quite close to the affected area, and you can see the nets above the streets ... 

Host: These nets are designed to block the drones, as if they are mosquitos looking for warm bodies... 

[SFX: muted explosion] 

Alexie: You can hear the, uh, grenade drops around the area. Still you can see how life wants to live. It's not joyful I'd say. 

you of course listen to the skies. You can see how other people also do it, and people try not to talk too loud, so that they can hear the sound of the drone . And then there are a couple of shops and, coffee places where you can see people standing outside, but you can also see on them that they're ready to rush into the back, into the, uh, cafe [laughs] as soon as they hear the sound. 

[SFX: drone] 

Host: So drone warfare is happening all over the battlefields in Ukraine, even deep inside Russia with Ukraine launching attacks on oil facilities and military installations. But this type of thing, with Russian drones attacking civilians? It seems to be centered mostly in and around Kherson. Why? Why here? And is there any way to stop it? That's after the break... 

[ad break] 

Ngofeen: Belkis, you're back. 

Belkis: Happy to be back. 

Ngofeen: What do you do at Human Rights Watch? Remind me. 

Belkis: I am an associate director in the Crisis Conflict and Arms Division at Human Rights Watch, and I've been living in Ukraine for the last three years. 

Host: The last time Belkis Wille was on the podcast was to talk about Russian war crimes and crimes against humanity in Mariupol, a Ukrainian city that is still under Russian occupation. More recently, she helped with a Human Rights Watch report called "Hunted From Above: Russia's Use of Drones to Attack Civilians in Kherson, Ukraine." One of the things we talked about is how what's happening in Kherson fits into the history of drone warfare. In other words, the context... 

Belkis: 10, 15 years ago when the discussion of use of drones was coming up, and it was largely coming up because of the US military and the US military using drones to target, you know, members of Al-Qaeda and other groups they had designated as terrorists and at the time, what the American military was saying was that by having someone sitting kind of quietly in a room removed from the fog of war, this actually allowed militaries to comply with international humanitarian law better because international humanitarian law requires armies to take all feasible precaution to minimize harm to civilians. 

And drone operator sitting in this room is much less at risk of being sort of confused by something going on on the battlefield, and then let's say targeting the the wrong person. That argument is premised on the idea that the person operating this drone is actually trying to comply with international humanitarian law and what we've seen with these Russian attacks, particularly in the city of Kherson, is what happens when you have an army and drone operators who are actually trying to use this highly precise tool that allows you to target an individual with a lot of specificity, and you're actually trying to break the law. You're trying to target civilians and the use of these drones allows you to target civilians cheaply and with such high accuracy. 

Host: So these quadcopter drones, they're really cheap. I looked on Amazon and you can get one from as little as $50 or as much as $500. You can then rig them with grenades or mines, or even with fuel to start fires. Most of them are fitted with high-resolution cameras. 

Belkis: And so that means, the drone operator, in this case, Russian soldiers who are flying these drones, with a, screen in front of them so they can see what the drone sees, they are able to identify homes that people are still living in. They're able to identify people driving in their car or riding their bicycle, and then they're able to follow those people and then drop a bomb on them. That means lethal force. And We're talking about soldiers who don't need much skill to fly one of these drones. 

Ngofeen: So does that mean, if I understand correctly, the person who is potentially blowing you up is like kilometers away from you? 

Belkis: Yeah, so the soldiers, the soldiers who are flying these quadcopter drones are very close to the city of Kherson. They're just south of the river in these Russian military positions, along the South Bank. There's obviously battery life to consider. So, we've even heard these terrifying stories from people of how, in order to save up battery life, Russian soldiers will land the drones on top of taller buildings in the city, and they'll just have them kind of waiting there. And then there will be one larger surveillance drone that's kind of checking the neighborhood to see if there's any movement, if anyone's coming out oftheir houses. And then one of these smaller drones will deploy and fly towards that person and then target that person. 

Olga: Я дуже рідко про це думала, якщо чесно, тому що Ти коли бачиш дрон, ти вже його висприймаєш як охотника, тобто розумієш, що там за цим дроном сидять російські військові, дивляться, полюють. [fade under] 

Olga_English: When the drone is hunting you, there is only you and the drone. We know that the Russian soldiers are behind the drones. But for us, at the moment of the attack there, is us and the drone. The hunter that hunts us. 

Ngofeen: What is the, the narrative on the Russian side about what is happening? 

Belkis: So on the one hand, if you look across Russian sources at the higher level, you know, whether that's Putin or the Minister of Defense or, or others at the, the higher military ranks, you don't see them saying anything about their military attacks in Kherson, but at the lower level, what you see is that these Russian units are constantly posting videos of these attacks on their Telegram channels. And what's remarkable from these videos is that, you know, in a few instances, sometimes, in the caption of the video, they'll say, oh, these are actually secretly Ukrainian soldiers. 

Often tthey don't even bother to say that or come up with that justification. But what's, shocking is that the videos themselves will clearly show an attack on an ambulance or on a mother with a kid or on an older person on a bicycle. There is nothing from the videos that they're posting that would lead one, to think that these are attacks on, on military targets, or that the drone operators actually think these are Ukrainian soldiers in disguise. 

I mean, this is really sort of an unabashed campaign targeting civilians. 

Ngofeen: And is this, from the Russian point of view, is it successful? Has this been a successful strategy? 

Belkis: So what people in Kherson will tell you, particularly in these neighborhoods that have really come under the most significant attack, is that the Russian military wants these neighborhoods empty. They want a buffer zone along the river. Maybe that's with an aim of, you know, crossing back over the river and trying to retake some territory to the North of the river again. And unlike years of Russian targeting through artillery and cluster munitions and mortar shells, which didn't work, which didn't get people to leave their houses, these quadcopter drones and this campaign has pushed people out of their homes. So in that sense, unfortunately, this has been a highly effective depopulation campaign by the Russians. 

Alexei: You know, there are some villages around Kherson where people stay no matter what, and they said no one needs us outside of my house. I'm afraid not to be evacuated properly and finding better place to live. So I stay and I stay here with my animals and I stay here with my kids. We don't move.  

But then the drones came and they came in swarms, and the drones deliver all kinds of dangers. They can drop grenades, they can fly into the house, they can drop a flame bomb. So it becomes intolerable and even these people start contemplating on whether we stay or not. I'd say those who can evacuate, they did evacuate already. 

Olga: А приїхала я в Корабельний район тільки не мікрорайон Корабел, бо часто путають це острів де у нас мост зірвали, а Корабельний район на Жилпосілок. [ fade under] 

Olga_English: So I used to live three blocks away from the river of Dnipro. And drones were flying there constantly. And just to keep in mind that the drones, they are not only attacking the people and, and the cars and everything. They also disperse the mines and my street that I've been living on is heavily mined because of that. And I moved into the more safe area. It is still reachable by the drones, but it's still more safe to live there and to drive around in these new areas that I'm living, and this new area is called Korabani District. 

Ngofeen: Intuitively, I think one knows that this is illegal, but can you explain why it's illegal? 

Belkis: So under international humanitarian law, it is prohibited by a warring party to target civilians. And when we're talking about these quadcopter, uh, short range drones, we're talking about a deliberate and direct targeting of civilians. And we can say that with such conviction because each of these drones have a camera on them, so we know exactly what the drone operator is seeing at the time of the attack. And so we know that that means the operator has seen that this person is not wearing a military uniform, has no sign of a weapon, and, and so we know that that is then a deliberate choice that's being made to target what is apparently a civilian. 

Ngofeen: What does the drone do psychologically that it makes people go like, ah, I'm gonna get outta here. Because like, having your city blown up all the time is also pretty scary. 

Belkis: I think, you know, in, in, in my experience having worked in many different conflict areas, people to a certain extent, get used to coming under attack if they're in cities that are, are being attacked. And when you're talking about indiscriminate weapon systems and randomized attacks, people do, to a certain extent rely on the odds and they think, okay, well it's not gonna happen to me. And so I think here the differences that people realize if I get attacked, it's because someone specifically saw me and is following me. And the Russian soldiers have made it very clear that in these particular areas and neighborhoods they will follow and target anyone that moves outside their house, including myself. Right. So I think it's, it's that deliberateness of the targeting. And added to that which, which you alluded to, there is this psychological element, which is that living constantly under the hum of drones, knowing that you are being surveilled all the time by the other side, by an aggressing force, takes a huge psychological toll. And that's even before the drone starts dropping the bomb. Just knowing that you are constantly being watched, is something that we've seen has severe psychological consequences. And we've seen that across many conflicts 

Olga_English: The problem is that because of the high level of stress that I'm living through and also because of the constant drone attacks, my memory is not that good as it was. 

Alexei: It's disastrous for, for our people. Feeling, knowing that the Russians would hit anything they see is, uh, makes everyone even more scared. 

Ngofeen: So, what does this mean? Bigger picture for the future of war? 

Belkis: So, I think there's multiple things that we need to be wary of as we look at warfare as it's going to develop in light of, where the tech is. And, and one reality is that in 2022, drones accounted for a small number of civilian casualties. Now we've gotten to a point in the Ukraine war where most civilian casualties are coming from drones. 

And the reality is that this technology is not simply going to stay in the hands of governments and state militaries, but it's going to,extend to non-state armed groups, but even criminal gangs. And we're starting to see in countries like Mexico and Colombia, you know, drug cartels, criminal gangs are starting to use quadcopter drones in the exact same way to drop bombs on police stations or in the middle of towns and villages. The implications of this kind of a campaign are really going to extend globally to anywhere where there's fighting and it's not gonna restrict itself to a state-on-state conflict like the Russia, Ukraine war. 

Host: That's pretty dire. Cheap weaponized drones spreading throughout most oft he world. But there's actually something even more frightening that might come out of the Russia Ukraine War, Belkis told me. And yes, you may have guessed it, it has to do with Artificial Intelligence. 

Belkis: The drones that we documented the Russians using in this campaign in Kherson are drones that do not use AI and where there's an individual Russian soldier who's operating the drone and choosing when to drop the bomb. However, we also know that both Ukraine and Russia have been working very hard to develop drone systems that are more autonomous. So the idea is that you would take a drone, you would, as the operator, you would give it an instruction of a certain location to go to. You would give it the GPS coordinates, and you would've, let's say, shown the drone a million pictures of a tank, and you would program the drone to drop whatever it's carrying on anything in that location that looks like a tank. 

And then once you send the drone off in that direction, you would cease to have any communications with the drone. The reason that there's such a race to produce that technology is because with the increase in use of drones by both sides, you've had the countermeasure, which is drone jamming. So it's an effort where the, the side that's being attacked basically uses a technology to jam the signal between the operator and the drone so that the operator can, for example, no longer see the camera and no longer accurately fly the drone and, drop a bomb. So the consequence of trying to respond to that countermeasure has been both sides saying, okay, let's terminate the signal between the operator and the drone. So that the drone can carry out the attack without getting jammed. The really scary thing with this technology that I'm describing to you and, what is being developed in real time by both sides is that you can equally program that drone with a million pictures of a kid on a bicycle. 

Host: In other words, the next evolution in drone warfare might be autonomous killer robots powered by AI, and this is developing so quickly that the world hasn’t yet figured out a way to regulate or control it... 

Belkis: Right now we have no killer robots convention or a convention that's, dictating when and how technology, particularly in the direction of autonomy and autonomous weapons should develop. 

Host: But we're getting ahead of ourselves here. So getting back to Ukraine and Russia: What should be done now to stop Russia from using drones to kill civilians. Human Rights Watch has a few recommendations on this. Basically, and obviously, they’re calling on Russia to start abiding by International Humanitarian law and stop targeting civilians. It's also calling on Russia and all militaries using drones to keep logs of their activities, so that investigators can determine if they were used lawfully, the drones. And Human Rights Watch is calling on drone manufacturers to track when their drones are being used unlawfully and to cooperate with international law enforcement to identify buyers and resellers of drones that are used unlawfully on civilians. 

In the meantime, Olga and other residents of Kherson continue to live under the constant threat of Russian drones and have to calculate the risks of staying. 

Olga: ​[00:28:00] Насправді мені є куди виїхати в Ніколаєв далі але я просто не хочу залишати свій міст. Йому дуже дякую. 

Olga_English: I do have the place where I can evacuate, but I do not want to leave my city of Kherson. I want to live here. 

OUTRO 

Host: Thanks to Alexei Sandakov and Olga Chernushova for speaking with us from Kherson. 

Read the report on Human Rights Watch’s website, hrw.org, It's called "Hunted from Above: Russia's Use of Drones to Attack Civilians in Kerson, Ukraine." 

You’ve been listening to Rights & Wrongs from Human Rights Watch. This episode was produced by me and Curtis Fox. Sophie Soloway is the associate producer. Ifé Fatunase and Stacy Sullivan are the executive producers. Thanks also to Anthony Gale. And to  Human Rights Watch’s Kseniya Kvitka for translating Olga for us. 

I’m Ngofeen Mputubwele. We’ll be back in two weeks with a new episode. Thanks for listening!