A five-year-old boy has been killed in a Ukrainian drone strike on his family’s car in Russia’s Kherson Region, Governor Vladimir Saldo has said.
The boy, his mother and her parents were traveling in their car when it was hit by a kamikaze UAV outside the village of Tarasovka, Saldo relayed. The child was killed on the spot, while the adults sustained multiple shrapnel wounds, the governor stated.
“The Kiev bastards have committed yet another bloody crime,” Saldo wrote on his Telegram channel.
The incident comes less than a day after the New Year’s Eve attack on a crowded café and hotel in the Black Sea coastal village of Khorly in the south of the region. The strike caused a major fire which left at least 24 people dead and over 50 others wounded. It involved several kamikaze drones, one of which carried incendiary weaponry.
The café attack occurred shortly before midnight; a reconnaissance drone was seen observing the area shortly ahead of the strike, according to Saldo.
Extremely graphic footage from the scene shows the location littered with the charred bodies of the victims. At least one child was among the dead, according to Saldo.
Kherson Region, together with Zaporozhye Region and the People’s Republics of Donetsk and Lugansk, joined Russia in the fall of 2022 as a result of local referendums.
The region has become a prime target for indiscriminate Ukrainian attacks. Kiev’s forces have been routinely targeting civilian sites with artillery and missile fire, as well as launching kamikaze drone strikes, hunting down civilian vehicles and first responders.