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‘My husband died in my arms’: Russian drone attacks on Ukrainians amount to crimes against humanity, UN investigators report

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“Russian armed forces have committed the crimes against humanity of murder and the war crimes of attacking civilians, through a months-long pattern of drone attacks targeting civilians on the right bank of the Dnipro River in Kherson Province,” the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on Ukraine said.

Attacks have been carried out since July 2024 in Kherson city and 16 localities stretching over more than 100 kilometres in river front areas under Ukrainian Government control. 

They are ongoing and nearly 150 civilians have been killed and hundreds more injured to date, according to official sources.

Attacks ‘planned and organised’

“The recurrence of these attacks for over 10 months, against multiple civilian targets and in a wide geographic area, demonstrates that they are widespread and systematic and have been planned and organised, requiring the mobilisation and allocation of necessary resources,” the report said.

The Commission examined over 300 publicly available videos of attacks and over 600 text posts on Telegram channels and, where possible, identified victims. 

Over 90 residents from affected areas were interviewed, including victims, witnesses, local authorities and medical personnel. 

Civilians were targeted “in various circumstances, mainly when they were outdoors, both on foot or while using any type of vehicles” the report said. Most victims were men, but women and children also were affected.

‘My husband died in my arms’

A woman from Poniativka village recounted that in September 2024, she was walking home with her husband and suddenly heard a drone. It was already above their heads and immediately dropped an explosive, giving them no time to seek shelter. Both were injured. 

“My husband died in my arms, bleeding to death, because the ambulance did not arrive on time. I tried to stop the bleeding with a T-shirt, but it was not enough,” she said.

Videos posted on Telegram

Russian forces mostly used civilian drones that are widely commercially available, which were then modified.

“The weaponized versions of these drones allow their operators, via an embedded camera, to remotely track, aim, and drop explosives on targets. They can return to their point of origin to be reused,” the report said.

“Occasionally, perpetrators employed suicide drones that are also equipped with cameras but that explode upon impact on their targets.”

Hundreds of the video feeds have been regularly disseminated on Russian Telegram channels, some of which have thousands of subscribers. 

“The video footage that they posted displays the attacks and the resulting death, injury, damage, or destruction, and is styled like video games, often accompanied by background music and threatening text,” the report said.

Ambulances targeted

Furthermore, ambulances also have been targeted and struck by drones to prevent them from reaching victims, and some have died because they could not get to a medical facility in time. 

“A 45-year-old man from Stanislav village recounted that in November 2024, a drone dropped an explosive near him as he was riding a moped, badly injuring his leg. An ambulance arrived, and while he was receiving first aid, a drone dropped two explosives on the ambulance,” the report said.

The Commission stressed that the use of drones to target civilians and civilian objects is a violation of the fundamental principle of international humanitarian law as such attacks may only be directed at military objects.

“The Commission therefore concludes that Russian armed forces perpetrated the war crime of intentionally directing attacks against civilians in Kherson Province,” it said, while “posting videos of civilians being killed and injured amounts to the war crime of outrages upon personal dignity.”

‘Drones were attacking everything’

The drone attacks have spread terror among residents of the affected areas. Many wait for cloudy days to go out, or seek cover under trees, where possible. 

“Drones were attacking everything; minibuses, cars, pedestrians…every time you went out of the house, you had to check the sky and look out for a buzzing sound and, in any case, run,” a man from Antonivka settlement told the Commission.

Moreover, fear is further induced by frequent messages posted on Telegram, such as “Get out of the city before the leaves fall, you who are destined to die.”

“The recurrent drone attacks, the widely disseminated videos showing them, and numerous posts explicitly exhorting the population to leave suggest a coordinated state policy, on the part of the Russian authorities, to force the population of Kherson Province to leave the area,” investigators said.

They concluded Russian forces may have committed the crime against humanity of forcible transfer of population.

Mandate from Human Rights Council

The commission is mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of human rights, violations of international humanitarian law and related crimes in the context of the aggression against Ukraine by Russia.

The three Commissioners serve in their individual capacity and are independent from any government or organization, including the UN.

 

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Stressful life make people focus more on their romantic partner’s negative behavior

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Stressful life circumstances can affect how married couples interact, but can they affect how partners see each other? A person experiencing stress is more likely to notice their spouse’s negative behavior than positive, according to a new study published in Social Psychological and Personality Science.

Prior research has focused on how stress influences behavior, but this study suggests that stress could affect what actions partners notice in the first place. The negative actions being monitored included a spouse breaking a promise, showing anger or impatience, or criticizing their partner.

“We found that individuals who reported experiencing more stressful life events outside of their relationship, such as problems at work, were especially likely to notice if their partner behaved in an inconsiderate manner,” says lead author Dr. Lisa Neff, of the University of Texas at Austin.

Researchers asked 79 heterosexual newlywed couples to complete a short survey each night for 10 days, in which they documented both their own and their partner’s behavior. Before beginning this portion of the study, participants completed a questionnaire in which they shared details on stressful events in their life.

Stress

Studying newlyweds drives home the significance of the results, Dr. Neff notes, because couples are especially likely to focus on each other’s positive behavior and overlook negative actions during the “honeymoon” period.

“For many people, the past few years have been difficult – and the stress of the pandemic continues to linger,” says Dr. Neff. “If stress focuses individuals’ attention toward their partner’s more inconsiderate behaviors, this is likely to take a toll on the relationship.”

Researchers noted a single stressful day was not enough to make someone zero in on their partner’s negative behavior, but a longer accumulation of stressful life circumstances could cause this shift in focus. The findings also suggest that those under stress were not any less likely to notice their partner’s positive behavior, but they were more likely to notice inconsiderate actions.

While it’s possible that being aware of the effects of stress could allow couples to correct their behavior and limit harm to the relationship, Dr. Neff notes that this will remain speculation until it is studied further. She also says that future research would do well to expand this study beyond the honeymoon phase.

“One direction would be to examine if the harmful effects of stress might be even stronger among couples no longer in the newlywed phase of their relationships,” says Dr. Neff, “but the fact that we found these effects in a sample of newlyweds speaks to how impactful the effects of stress can be.”

What does it mean for the husband when his wife keeps her own surname?

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When a woman chooses not to take her husband’s surname after marriage, people perceive her husband as being higher in traits related to femininity and lower in traits related to masculinity. He is also perceived as having less power in the relationship. This is according to a study led by Rachael Robnett of the University of Nevada in the US. The research is published in Springer’s journal Sex Roles and is the first to examine whether people’s perceptions of a man’s personality vary depending on whether his wife adopts his surname or retains her own.

The tradition of women adopting their husbands’ surname after marriage is arguably one of the most widespread gender-role norms in Western cultures. In recent decades, it has gained attention from feminist scholars who want to understand why the surname tradition remains widely endorsed despite marked changes in the role that women play in society and in the labor force.

According to previous studies, women who violate the marital surname tradition are viewed differently from others. They are described in terms of instrumental traits that in a gendered society are typically assigned to men. These include having a higher status, yielding more power, being more self-focused, ambitious and assertive. These traits contrast with the expressive characteristics that are typically assigned to women, such as being more nurturing, kind and having less influence and power.

To date, researchers have not yet examined how a woman’s marital surname choice influences how others perceive her husband. To this end, Robnett and her colleagues carried out three studies in the US and UK. The first two studies showed that husbands whose wives keep their own surnames are often described through terms that are counter to the gender-typical personality traits and power framework used for men. They are described in more expressive than instrumental terms, and are seen to hold less power in a marriage.

“A woman’s marital surname choice therefore has implications for perceptions of her husband’s instrumentality, expressivity, and the distribution of power in the relationship,” says Robnett. “Our findings indicate that people extrapolate from marital surname choices to make more general inferences about a couple’s gender-typed personality traits.”

Results from the third study conducted by Robnett’s team suggest that people are not unanimous in how they think about such cases. People who firmly hold on to traditional gender roles and can be described as hostile sexists react particularly strongly to a man whose wife retains her surname because they see him as being disempowered.

“We know from prior research that people high in hostile sexism respond negatively to women who violate traditional gender roles,” says Robnett. “Our findings show that they also apply stereotypes to nontraditional women’s husbands.”

“This study joins several others in alluding to a link between traditions in heterosexual romantic relationships and power structures favoring men,” says Robnett. “The marital surname tradition is more than just a tradition. It reflects subtle gender-role norms and ideologies that often remain unquestioned despite privileging men.”