They've turned people's lives into a horror show
In the battered Ukrainian city of Kherson, a small corps of bus drivers continues to move through streets hunted by Russian drones, carrying the elderly, the sick, and the stranded through a city that has lost most of its people but not its need for connection. Three of their colleagues have been killed this year, and the weapons pursuing them have grown sophisticated enough to evade every countermeasure available. These drivers have chosen, with full knowledge of the cost, to remain — not out of recklessness, but out of a conviction that to abandon the 65,000 who stayed would be its own kind of surrender.
- Russian drones now actively hunt public buses in Kherson, striking vehicles mid-route with passengers aboard and then targeting the ambulances that respond — a deliberate escalation that constitutes war crimes under international law.
- New fiber optic drone technology has rendered jamming devices useless, leaving drivers with little more than helmets, bulletproof vests, and anti-drone nets strung above the streets as their only defenses.
- Three transport workers have been killed and eight wounded in 2026 alone, yet the municipal company — operating roughly 30 buses for a city reduced to 65,000 residents — has not suspended service.
- Drivers follow a grim protocol: when detection devices sound, stop the bus, evacuate passengers, direct them to shelter — a routine that now occurs roughly once every hour or ninety minutes.
- Workers who survive attacks, like one driver hospitalized with shrapnel in his chest, return to their routes, describing their continued service as a moral obligation to those who have nowhere else to turn.
Anatoly Dmytrov was driving Route 14 through Kherson when a drone found his bus. The vehicle was crowded. Windows exploded inward, glass flew through the cabin, and eight passengers were hurt. He got the bus to the next stop, noticed blood on his own face in the mirror, and his first instinct was tactical: a second drone might follow. "They've started hunting buses down," he told the BBC. "You go to work and you have no idea if you are going to come home."
Kherson once held 300,000 people. Roughly 65,000 remain. The city sits under Ukrainian control but inside a region Russia claims as its own — occupied briefly in 2022, then retaken by Ukrainian forces that autumn, and bombarded relentlessly from across the Dnipro river ever since. This year, the municipal transport company has lost three workers to drone strikes and seen twenty-one trolleybuses and eight buses damaged. The attacks, which began last year, are growing more frequent and more precise.
Rita Dobrinova, who manages the municipal company, has watched the threat evolve in a particularly troubling direction. Russian operators have shifted to fiber optic-guided drones that cannot be jammed. Detection devices — called chuyka — alert drivers only to drones using known frequencies; the newer machines are invisible to them. When a chuyka does sound, the protocol is to stop, clear the bus, and move passengers to shelter. It sounds roughly once an hour.
The human cost has been compounding. On April 11, a driver was killed when a bomb dropped through his cabin roof. On May 3, Eduard Zadorozhny and colleagues were struck in a company van on the way to work. When an ambulance arrived, it was struck too. An engineer colleague died in the second strike. Eduard was left concussed. "They hit you, and then they hit you again," he said. "They've turned people's lives into a horror show."
Maksym Dyak returned to driving after being hospitalized with a broken rib and shrapnel in his chest. His explanation was simple: the elderly, the sick, and the children who remain in Kherson need to reach pharmacies and hospitals, and no one else will take them. Asked whether he had thought of leaving, he didn't hesitate. "This is where I was born, this is where I live, and this is where I'll live until the very end." The drones keep coming. The buses keep running.
Anatoly Dmytrov was steering his bus through Route 14 in Kherson when the drone found him. The vehicle was packed—people standing shoulder to shoulder in the aisles—when it reached an intersection and the impact came. Windows exploded inward. Glass everywhere. He managed to nurse the damaged bus to the next stop, where a shelter stood waiting, and only then did he catch his reflection in the mirror: blood. His first thought was practical, born of hard experience: another drone might follow immediately. Eight of his passengers were hurt that day in May.
"This happens almost every day," Anatoly told the BBC. "They've started hunting buses down. You go to work and you have no idea if you are going to come home."
Kherson, a city that once held 300,000 people, now shelters roughly 65,000. It sits firmly under Ukrainian control, yet it is the administrative center of a region Russia claims as its own. The Russians occupied it in the opening days of the 2022 invasion, then lost it to Ukrainian forces that autumn. Since then, it has endured relentless bombardment from across the Dnipro river. This year alone, the municipal transport company—which operates about 30 buses—has lost three workers to drone strikes. Eight more have been wounded. Twenty-one trolleybuses and eight buses have been damaged. Six privately operated buses have also been hit. The attacks, which began last year, are intensifying.
Rita Dobrinova manages the municipal transport company. She has watched the threat evolve. Russian operators have begun using fiber optic cables to guide their drones, technology that cannot be jammed. "Some are just hovering, waiting," she said. "Others are scout drones. They look the driver right in the eye through the windscreen." She recalled one driver on April 11 who had a bomb drop through his cabin roof and land on his head. He did not survive.
The city has erected anti-drone nets over busy streets to shield pedestrians and traffic. Drivers receive helmets and bulletproof vests. They carry detection devices called chuyka, but these tools are increasingly useless. The detectors only sense drones using known navigation frequencies. Machines relying on fiber optics or new frequencies remain invisible. When a chuyka beeps—roughly once per hour or ninety minutes—it tells the driver only that a drone exists somewhere nearby, measured in meters or kilometers. The protocol is to stop, evacuate passengers, and direct them to shelter.
Eduard Zadorozhny was being driven to work on May 3 in a company van with colleagues when a drone struck. "They hit us, we got out, and when an ambulance arrived to help us, they hit the ambulance," he said. One of his colleagues, an engineer, was killed in the second strike. Eduard was concussed. Deliberately targeting medical workers constitutes a war crime under international law. "What they do is hit you, and then they hit you again," he told the BBC. "They've turned people's lives into a horror show."
Yet the buses still run. Maksym Dyak, another municipal driver, was hospitalized earlier this year with a broken rib and shrapnel embedded in his chest after a drone attack. He returned to work. "We need to get people to their pharmacies and hospitals: children and the elderly, everyone who has stayed here," he explained. "No-one apart from us will do this. We realise that if we abandon these people, no one else will drive them." When asked if he had considered leaving Kherson, his answer was immediate: "I never thought of leaving. This is where I was born, this is where I live and this is where I'll live until the very end. I'm not going anywhere."
They work, as Maksym put it, like rats in a cage, attacked from every direction, but they keep driving. The city depends on them. The drones keep coming.
Citas Notables
This happens almost every day. They've started hunting buses down. You go to work and you have no idea if you are going to come home.— Anatoly Dmytrov, bus driver
We work like rats in a cage. We get attacked from every side, but we keep driving.— Maksym Dyak, bus driver
La Conversación del Hearth Otra perspectiva de la historia
Why do these drivers stay? Surely the risk is rational grounds to leave.
Because the people who remain—the elderly, the children, the sick—have nowhere else to go. If the drivers leave, those 65,000 people are stranded. It's not heroism exactly. It's necessity wearing a human face.
But the technology is getting worse. Fiber optic drones can't be detected. Doesn't that change the calculation?
It does. It makes the work almost blind. A chuyka beeps once an hour, tells you a drone is near, but not which one or how close. You're driving on faith and routine, knowing the threat is there but invisible.
The second strike on the ambulance—that seems deliberate.
It was. That's the pattern they've described. Hit the bus, wait for help to arrive, hit again. It's not random targeting. It's designed to maximize casualties and terror.
Do the drivers talk about leaving after something like that?
Not the ones in this story. Anatoly, Eduard, Maksym—they all say the same thing in different words: this is home, these are our people, we stay. Whether that's courage or simply the weight of obligation, it's hard to say.