Under Fire In Kherson
Zarina Zabrisky updates the Byline Times Podcast from the 'drone siege' on the frontline of Russia's war in Ukraine
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The blast of gunfire can be heard in the background of Zarina Zabrisky’s latest interview for the Byline Times Podcast from the Ukrainian city of Kherson, where mobile defence groups are attempting to shoot down incoming Russian drones.
“This is an ongoing sound in Kherson,” Zarina told the Byline Times Podcast. “Kherson aside, the same situation can be reported from across Ukraine. This morning in Odessa, a residential area was struck [killing] a 16-year-old girl in bed, while her mother and father were celebrating the mother’s birthday – just the two of them having a quiet drink in the kitchen. There’s a lot of attacks going on in Dnipro. Zaporizhzhia [home of a nuclear reactor] was hit by a guided aerial bomb yesterday. Sumy and Kharkiv were hit and the rescue work in Kyiv continues with already 14 or 15 reported killed, and over 50 or 60 injured…”
This daily round of attacks on civilian targets yields only sporadic coverage in the mainstream press in Western Europe and the United States, prompting Zarina to observe that “a large country in the middle of Europe is being erased and not only is Russia not being stopped, it is preparing, as has been reported by many intelligence services, to attack more countries in Europe.”
Ukraine has enjoyed some successful counter-attacks success in recent weeks, hitting oil facilities in St Petersburg and Moscow, causing fuel shortages in Russia and putting pressure on President Putin. It remains to be seen whether this week’s NATO summit in Turkey being attended by President Trump will lead to any ramping up of military support to aid their war effort, but Zarina is pessimistic: “Ukraine is the only force that can actually confront Russia. Everybody else is just talking the talk and not walking the walk.”
In the meantime, Russia is developing new tactics to supplement the ‘human safari’ drone warfare she was the first to identify in Kherson. Their latest strategy is a ‘drone siege’. Zarina explains: “This is the siege of a city or a village from the sky by drones dropping explosives and dropping mines, so they block all the access roads and basically encircle the settlement. This is happening right now on the other side of the Dnipro River, about one kilometre or so away from where I’m talking. These are occupied territories of the Kherson region, with an estimated population of up to 6,000 Ukrainian civilians, who have been living since December 2025 without food deliveries, medical deliveries, or fuel. There’s no heat, no electricity, no water supply. People are dying by dozens. The bodies are not being buried. They are literally human bodies being consumed by wild animals and stray dogs. The world is still unaware that these people are being used as human shields by the Russian troops.”
Zarina will be writing shortly in much more detail about the ‘drone siege’ for Byline Times.
In the meantime, you can watch her full interview for the Byline Times Podcast here.
This episode was produced by Adrian Goldberg and Harvey White. Thanks to Heidi Siegmund Cuda for the photo of Zarina at the top of the page.