KHERSON, Ukraine – The new Kherson municipal offices are located a few floors belowground, one of the more glaring signs that civilians here are routinely hunted by drones operated by Russian forces about 3 miles away, on the far side of the Dnieper River.

Ukrainian forces liberated 30 percent of the region in November 2022, nine months after Russia’s full-scale invasion. Since then, the front line has been at a stalemate; that doesn’t mean it’s been inactive.

Kherson suffers near-daily attacks from all manner of Russian weapons, artillery and missiles. But armed drones, and their targeting of civilians, are drawing increased attention and horror. On Wednesday, a United Nations commission released a report calling the Russian drone attacks crimes against humanity.

“They are killing ordinary civilian people, just elderly people, children, those who are waiting at the bus stop — they are killing them, they are taking videos of that and they are putting them online on their Telegram channels,” said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson Regional Military Administration.

“They are calling it a ‘safari,’ and they are just laughing at it and there is nothing we can do to combat the drones.”

Prokudin spoke to The Hill from the basement of one of Kherson’s new municipal workspaces, part of a new city plan to move all essential services — hospitals, schools, government offices — underground. Nine hospitals are underground at the moment, with plans to build another 12.

Kherson is one of five regions Russian President Vladimir Putin wants the United States — and the broader international community — to recognize as sovereign Russian territory as part of any peace deal. President Trump’s top envoy for negotiations, Steve Witkoff, has not

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