“Russian armed forces have committed the crimes against humanity of murder and the war crimes of attacking civilians, through a months-long pattern of drone attacks targeting civilians on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Province,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said.

Attacks have been carried out since July 2024 in Kherson city and 16 localities stretching over more than 100 kilometres in riverfront areas under Ukrainian Government control. 

They are ongoing and nearly 150 civilians have been killed and hundreds more injured to date, according to official sources.

Attacks ‘planned and organised’

“The recurrence of these attacks for over 10 months, against multiple civilian targets and in a wide geographic area, demonstrates that they are widespread and systematic and have been planned and organised, requiring the mobilisation and allocation of necessary resources,” the report said.

The Commission examined over 300 publicly available videos of attacks and over 600 text posts on Telegram channels and, where possible, identified victims. 

Over 90 residents from affected areas were interviewed, including victims, witnesses, local authorities and medical personnel. 

Civilians were targeted “in various circumstances, mainly when they were outdoors, both on foot or while using any type of vehicles” the report said. Most victims were men, but women and children also were affected.

‘My husband died in my arms’

A woman from Poniativka village recounted that in September 2024, she was walking home with her husband and suddenly heard a drone. It was already above their heads and immediately dropped an explosive, giving them no time to seek shelter. Both were injured. 

“My husband died in my arms, bleeding to death, because the ambulance did not arrive on time. I tried to stop the bleeding with a T-shirt, but it was not enough,” she said.

Videos posted on Telegram

Russian forces mostly used civilian drones that are widely commercially available, which were then modified.

“The weaponized versions of these drones allow their operators, via an embedded camera, to remotely track, aim, and drop explosives on targets. They can return to their point of origin to be reused,” the report said.

“Occasionally, perpetrators employed suicide drones that are also equipped with cameras but that explode upon impact on their targets.”

Hundreds of the video feeds have been regularly disseminated on Russian Telegram channels, some of which have thousands of subscribers. 

“The video footage that they posted displays the attacks and the resulting death, injury, damage, or destruction, and is styled like video games, often accompanied by background music and threatening text,” the report said.

Ambulances targeted

Furthermore, ambulances also have been targeted and struck by drones to prevent them from reaching victims, and some have died because they could not get to a medical facility in time. 

“A 45-year-old man from Stanislav village recounted that in November 2024, a drone dropped an explosive near him as he was riding a moped, badly injuring his leg. An ambulance arrived, and while he was receiving first aid, a drone dropped two explosives on the ambulance,” the report said.

The Commission stressed that the use of drones to target civilians and civilian objects is a violation of the fundamental principle of international humanitarian law as such attacks may only be directed at military objects.

“The Commission therefore concludes that Russian armed forces perpetrated the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians in Kherson Province,” it said, while “posting videos of civilians being killed and injured amounts to the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity.”

‘Drones were attacking everything’

The drone attacks have spread terror among residents of the affected areas. Many wait for cloudy days to go out, or seek cover under trees, where possible. 

“Drones were attacking everything; minibuses, cars, pedestrians…every time you went out of the house, you had to check the sky and look out for a buzzing sound and, in any case, run,” a man from Antonivka settlement told the Commission.

Moreover, fear is further induced by frequent messages posted on Telegram, such as “Get out of the city before the leaves fall, you who are destined to die.”

“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,” investigators said.

They concluded Russian forces may have committed the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of population.

Mandate from Human Rights Council

The commission is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine by Russia.

The three Commissioners serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including the UN.

Unverified footage from Rafah where the privately-run but Israeli military-supported Gaza Humanitarian Foundation is based showed scenes of panic with crowds of people rushing in different directions, while others carried away boxes of supplies.

The UN human rights office, OHCHR, said that it had received information that at least 47 people had been hurt on Tuesday trying to collect aid.

Those numbers could increase as information on the incident is still being gathered, said Ajith Sunghay, Head of OHCHR in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, speaking to journalists in Geneva on Wednesday.

“From January to March 2024, our office has documented 26 incidents where the Israel Defense Forces fired shots while people were collecting humanitarian aid, causing casualties at Al Kuwaiti roundabout and Al Naburasi roundabout,” Mr. Sunghay told UN News.

Gaza ‘crime scene’ grows daily

The situation in Gaza has reached unprecedented levels of devastation, with widespread displacement, starvation and destruction, said Jonathan Whittall on Wednesday, who’s heads up UN aid coordination office, OCHA, for the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

“With each day that passes, Gaza is becoming a bigger and bigger crime scene,” Mr. Whittall warned, citing starvation, attacks on hospitals, aid worker deaths and entire communities displaced.

“Nowhere is safe. People are being starved and then drip-fed in the most undignified way possible.”

He added the trickle of aid entering Gaza is “far from enough” to meet basic needs, highlighting severe restrictions on aid delivery, with UN teams only allowed to distribute flour to bakeries and not to families directly.

“There must be accountability,” he stressed, urging political and economic pressure to end what he described as ongoing atrocities in Gaza.

New aid model ‘a grotesque symbol’ 

He said the US-Israeli distribution scheme was “engineered scarcity: four distribution hubs located in central and southern Gaza, secured by private US security contractors, where those Palestinians who can reach them will receive rations.”

Mr. Whittall added that it could not possibly meet Gaza’s needs.

“Knowingly designing a plan that falls short of minimum obligations under international law, is essentially an admission of guilt.” 

Locating the new aid model close to where Israeli forces killed and buried 15 mass responders earlier in the year is a “grotesque symbol of how life in Gaza, and that which sustains it, is being erased and controlled,” he said.

No evidence of Hamas aid diversion

Israel’s claim that UN and partners’ aid is being diverted by Hamas “doesn’t hold up to scrutiny,” he added.

“Aid coordinated through the UN system made up for 35 per cent of what entered during the ceasefire. We have no oversight on those supplies which were facilitated to enter by Israel through other channels.

“The real theft of aid since the beginning of the war has been carried out by criminal gangs, under the watch of Israeli forces, and they were allowed to operate in proximity to the Kerem Shalom crossing point into Gaza”

Renewed appeal for aid access

Meanwhile, UN aid teams have continued to appeal to Israel for access to Gaza to deliver and distribute thousands of tonnes of food, medicine and other basic items waiting just outside Gaza.

Jens Laerke from the UN agency OCHA insisted that the its staff have “everything needed to get aid to civilians safely: the people, the networks and the trust” of Gazans.

“Right now, nearly 180,000 pallets of food and other life-saving aid stand ready to enter Gaza, the hungriest place on earth,” he told UN News.

“The supplies have already been paid for by the world’s donors. It is cleared for customs, approved and ready to move. We can get the aid in – immediately, at scale and for as long as necessary.”

50,000 kids killed or injured

In a related development, UNICEF announced that the war in Gaza has killed or injured more than 50,000 children in less than 600 days.

UNICEF spokesperson Tess Ingram said that since the ceasefire ended on 18 March, approximately 1,300 children have been killed and 3,700 injured alone.

That number is enough children to fill more than 1,600 classrooms, Ms. Ingram told UN News: “Every one of these children is in life. A child with a family, with hopes for the future,” she said. “And yet we continue to count their deaths and live stream their suffering to the world. This must end immediately.

She added: “The children of Gaza desperately need protection from these ongoing bombardments, as well as food, water, medicine and other basic supplies that they need to survive. The blockade must end. Aid must flow freely and at scale, and more than anything else, we need a ceasefire we need collective action to stop these atrocities and to protect children.”

The UNICEF official’s comments follow an attack on a home last weekend that reportedly killed nine out of 10 siblings of one family, the Al-Najars; all the victims were 12 years old or younger.