Two Russian bombs tore into Kateryna Lahuta’s seafood business in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia last month, leaving the 41-year-old entrepreneur with a blunt message: whatever sense of safety remained had vanished.
Since the opening weeks of Russia’s 2022 full-scale invasion, Moscow’s forces have held positions just south of Zaporizhzhia — a major manufacturing hub of about 700,000 people — and have repeatedly struck the city with missiles and drones.
Now, residents and officials describe a more lethal phase, as a fresh surge of attacks coincides with Russia’s intensifying air campaign against Ukrainian cities while its forces make only slow, grinding gains at the front.
Watch: Drone hunts civilian in Kherson
“Even half a year ago it was still scary, of course, and there were strikes. But it wasn’t like this,” Ms Lahuta said. “Now it’s just a ‘safari’.”
Across Ukraine, people have begun using the word “safari” to describe drones that appear to “hunt” civilians or vehicles in the open — a reality residents of Kherson, a smaller frontline city in the south, have endured for some time.
When Reuters reporters visited Ms Lahuta’s business, they were forced to take cover after the telltale buzzing of a first-person-view (FPV) drone — small, fast helicopter-style drones carrying explosives and steered via live video — a weapon that has helped turn Ukraine’s front lines into what many call a “kill zone”.
Attacks aimed at scaring the public
Russia has denied targeting civilians in the war, which began with its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
But amid the blackened wreckage of the processing facility that supplied her shops, Ms Lahuta said the strikes had chased away customers, made long-term planning nearly impossible and worsened staffing shortages as more people are drawn into military service.
“Every day is like some kind of battle,” she said.
Local officials say the growing tempo of attacks is meant not only to hit infrastructure but also to spread fear, pointing to the first use of FPV drones over the city and a new, regular pattern of heavier glide bombs.
Zaporizhzhia is the administrative centre of one of four Ukrainian regions Russia has claimed as its own, though it controls only about three-quarters of the territory.
Ukrainian cities have been deploying netting to thwart drone strikes
On the ground, Russian troops have not managed to push forward along the narrow corridor south of Zaporizhzhia, where Ukrainian forces have mounted stiff resistance in recent months.
From those positions, however, Russian FPV drones have been striking clusters of civilians, vehicles and public transport — particularly in the city’s southern areas — according to governor Ivan Fedorov.
“The enemy is making it a priority to create maximum pressure on the civilian population,” Mr Fedorov said in an interview conducted inside an underground school designed to double as a bomb shelter.
FPV drones have been modified to fly farther, while air-launched glide bombs — like those that hit Ms Lahuta’s business — cannot be stopped without more advanced air-defence systems, he said.
Russia’s Defence Ministry did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Killer drones target Zaporizhzhia’s buses
In central Zaporizhzhia, busy cafes and steady commuter traffic can still project a veneer of ordinary life, even as air-raid sirens and alerts punctuate the day.
Yet the mood, residents say, has dimmed — and even Friday nights feel unusually quiet.
Near Motor Sich, the engine-building industrial giant, repeated bombardments have left visible damage across office blocks and apartment buildings.
Further south in the Kosmos district, workers are installing a canopy of drone netting above some roads to shield against FPV drones that have recently smashed through windshields and struck vehicle roofs.
Ukraine has trained military units to counter drone attacks
Two private bus drivers working a route through Kosmos said the rising number of attacks has unsettled both drivers and passengers.
Drone netting “won’t save you from the big ones”, said one driver, who declined to be named.
Mr Fedorov said Ukrainian air defences stop more than 95% of incoming FPV drones.
Even so, on the worst days — several each month — that remaining fraction can mean as many as 10 drones still getting through to cause injuries or damage, he said.
The city’s transit authority has started testing drone monitors for bus drivers and experimenting with new shatterproof glass, according to director Volodymyr Sukhachov.
So far this year, FPV drones or blasts from larger munitions have damaged 12 municipally operated buses or tramcars, Mr Sukhachov said, adding that officials do not plan to cut services.
Ania Syvova, a 34-year-old seamstress whose husband is fighting in the war, said she watched an FPV drone slam into a nearby bus last month as she travelled home to the south of the city.
“Maybe I have a good guardian angel,” she said with a smile.
Residents learn to live with danger
Ms Syvova said she now sends her 6-year-old daughter to an underground kindergarten, and that both of them have learned to adjust to life under constant threat.
“It sounds awful, but we’ve got used to this life,” she said. “For now, unfortunately, we don’t have another one.”
Officials say similar patterns are emerging in other frontline cities, including Kharkiv in northeast Ukraine, where FPV drone strikes have become “one of the main instruments of terror,” Mayor Ihor Terekhov said.
Mr Terekhov said 45 strikes were registered there last month.
In Zaporizhzhia, Russia has also been striking four to six times a day with glide bombs that Mr Fedorov said fly unpredictably.
Drone attacks are used to disrupt transport across the country
On Sunday, Russia dropped eight bombs on residential areas within an hour and a half, killing one person and wounding 31, Mr Fedorov told Ukrainian television.
Residents said recent attacks have increasingly come around midday and early evening, forming what they described as a chilling new routine.
Outside her battered apartment building, Tetiana, a 38-year-old government employee, said Russian forces “got crazy” last month, hitting her neighbourhood six times in a single week.
She said she wrestled with whether to leave or remain, knowing people depended on her work to keep essential services running.
“Honestly, I’m already totally empty,” she said, glancing at the charred shells of cars scattered across her courtyard.
