ZAPORIZHZHIA, Ukraine – When two Russian bombs hit Kateryna Lahuta’s seafood business in Ukraine’s southeastern city of Zaporizhzhia last month, they shattered the last semblance of security for the 41-year-old entrepreneur.
Since the first weeks of their 2022 invasion, Moscow’s forces have been dug in just south of Zaporizhzhia, a key manufacturing city of around 700,000 people, hammering it with missiles and drones. But a new wave of attacks has made life deadlier for residents, part of Russia’s escalating air war on Ukrainian cities as it makes only grinding progress on the front lines.
“Even half a year ago it was still scary, of course, and there were strikes. But it wasn’t like this,” said Lahuta. “Now it’s just a ’safari’.” Ukrainians have adopted the term ’safari’ to describe drones ’hunting down’ civilians or vehicles in the street — something residents of Kherson, a smaller southern city on the front line, have long suffered from. Reporters visiting Lahuta’s business had to seek cover after hearing the buzzing sound of a first-person-view (FPV) drone — the small, agile helicopter drones loaded with explosives and piloted by video that have made Ukraine’s front lines a “kill zone.”