Seconds after a Ukrainian medic began treating the injured, she heard a buzzing sound in the sky. Another drone was flying straight towards her, fast. ‘I panicked. I grabbed my trauma bag and started running,’ she recalls. ‘I shouted and screamed. I knew that if I stopped, I would die.’ After chasing her for about 10 minutes, the drone flew away. Lytvynenko was quickly picked up by police. But what she called the ‘safari hunting’ continued. Drones hit two more vehicles that arrived to take the injured woman to hospital. Hours later, a third police car finally managed to get her out.

Escalating Threat to Medical Facilities

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky called for greater pressure on Russia to stop deliberate ‘hunting attacks’ on civilians after another incident earlier this week. Hospitals and ambulances in Ukraine are increasingly coming under Russian drone and missile attack, even though, according to the international rules of war known as the Geneva Conventions, they must be protected by all parties to the conflict.

‘This is a new normality, which should not be the normality,’ says Dr Jarno Habicht, the World Health Organization’s (WHO) representative in Ukraine. The WHO has registered 3,118 attacks on healthcare since the start of the Russian invasion in February 2022. ‘That’s two cases per day,’ Habicht says. Since 2023 the number of attacks on healthcare has steadily grown. In 2024 it went up by 30%. Last year there was another 20% increase. This trend is expected to continue this year.

Child Among Three Killed in Nighttime Strikes Near Kyiv

At least three people, including a child, have been killed in overnight Russian attacks near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv. In the early hours of Saturday, missiles hit east of the capital, and witnesses reported hearing powerful explosions just days after strikes across Ukraine killed 21 people. Falling debris damaged apartment buildings and cars, while a fire broke out at a separate building, the head of the regional military administration Timur Tkachenko said. He added that three others had been wounded in the ballistic missile strikes.

Emergency crews were also fighting fires at a building and fuel tank in Kyiv, Mayor Vitaly Klitchko wrote on Telegram. Ukraine’s state emergency service DSNS shared photos showing garages, a business, and a building on fire in Kyiv, adding: ‘The number of victims is being clarified.’

Strained Defense Capabilities and Escalating Attacks

President Volodymyr Zelensky has arrived in Serbia for his first visit after raising concerns about Ukraine’s capacity to fend off Russian missile attacks due to depleting interceptors stockpiles. Earlier in the week, Zelensky said delays in receiving anti-ballistic systems from partners lead to ‘horrific casualties and destruction,’ saying that having a stronger interceptor capability ‘could have saved lives’ in recent deadly assaults. The president later said the supply of interceptors from allies had been ‘significantly reduced’ this year.

It came after Ukraine hit two oil refineries deep inside Russia along with Moscow-linked vessels in the Black Sea, which Zelensky said was intended to limit oil revenues used by Russia to ‘finance’ its war in Ukraine. Recent mediation talks have faltered, leading to an escalation of attacks between both sides. A recent Doctors Without Borders (MSF) report says that Russia systematically and often deliberately targets Ukrainian medical facilities. The frequency of attacks on healthcare suggests that they are ‘a sustained feature of the war rather than an episodic consequence of large scale offensives,’ the report said.