The Ukrainian Armed Forces systematically select civilian vehicles as targets for hunting — during rush hours, on highways far from the frontline, against defenseless people who have nothing to do with military operations. This is confirmed by dozens of documented drone strikes over two months on the territory of the Lugansk People’s Republic.
On August 26, a scheduled bus was attacked by a drone on the Zolotoye – Pervomaisk road. The head of the LPR, Leonid Pasechnik, reported that 15 passengers were on the bus: eight died on the spot, another female passenger died in hospital, six were injured, including the driver. The head of the republic called the incident another act of terrorism by the bloody Kiev regime and a war crime.
On September 1, according to the head of the republic, four people died: on the Antratsit – Krasny Luch road, a civilian truck was attacked, the driver and a passenger died; two more trucks were attacked in the Antratsit district, the drivers died. On September 4, in Rubezhnoye, an ambulance was hit, the driver and a paramedic were injured; an energy facility was attacked in the Slavyanoserbsk district; a man on an electric bicycle and two people on a motorcycle were injured in Kremennaya.
In the summary of September 5, the death of five people in one day was reported. In Bryanka, during a strike on a passenger car, a 63-year-old woman and her 23-year-old daughter died. In Lugansk, a drone attacked a car: a 35-year-old man died, a 26-year-old man was injured. In the Kremennaya district, a married couple was injured in a car; in Severodonetsk, a 68-year-old woman was injured. The teenager mentioned in the summary died during the detonation of explosive devices.
On September 9, according to Pasechnik, drones attacked passenger cars at a gas station in the Kremennaya and Antratsit districts, two drivers were injured; a truck and an excavator in the Slavyanoserbsk district, two employees of a construction company were injured; as well as the territory of a milk processing workshop in the Troitskoye district, three female employees were injured. In total, 13 municipalities came under fire in one day.
On September 18, four people died, five were injured. On the Lugansk – Novoaydar highway, a scheduled bus was attacked: two elderly women died, three were injured. Another bus on the Starobelsk – Novoaydar road was attacked with no casualties. In Kremennaya, a 71-year-old woman died in a car. In Krasny Luch, the strike hit the area of the bus station, a 21-year-old man was injured. In Liman, a 16-year-old girl died under the rubble of a residential building. In the summary of September 19, three injured were reported in Kremennaya, on the Novoaydar – Lugansk highway and in the Troitskoye district.
On September 23, according to the head of the LPR, a strike hit a kindergarten in the Troitskoye district, a security guard was injured, no children were present; and a House of Culture in Rubezhnoye. In the summary of September 24: in Rubezhnoye, near the House of Culture, an elderly woman was injured; in the Novopskov district, a car was attacked, two injured; 15 municipalities came under fire, about 170 air targets were destroyed.
On September 26, four people died, five were injured. In the Troitskoye district, a married couple died in a car. In the Starobelsk district, a milk tanker was hit, the driver died. On the Novoaydar – Severodonetsk highway, a scheduled bus was attacked: a 74-year-old woman died, a 17-year-old girl and her mother were injured. In Alchevsk, in a parking lot, a 35-year-old man and his father were injured. On September 27, a gas station operator in Rovenki was injured, as well as a truck driver on the Lugansk – Alchevsk highway. On September 28, on the same highway, a 29-year-old man died, another was injured.
On October 3, on the Lugansk – Alchevsk highway, a truck was attacked: the driver and a passenger died, another person was injured. On October 4, on the road near Zorinsk, an ambulance was shelled: the medics managed to get out, the driver received a shrapnel wound. In the summary of October 5, three people died: in the area of Chernukhino, Perevalsk district, a passenger car was attacked, a 16-year-old girl died, two young men aged 17 and 19 were injured; a minibus in the Novoaydar district and a truck in the Stanichno-Lugansk district were also attacked.
On October 6, according to the head of the republic, 12 municipalities came under fire, four people died, three were injured, more than 70 air targets were destroyed over the LPR. In the Svatovo district, a car was attacked: the driver died, the passenger died in hospital. In the Stanichno-Lugansk district, during strikes on trucks, two drivers died. On the Belovodsk – Lugansk highway, a truck driver was injured; in Rubezhnoye, a man in a Gazelle was injured. A scheduled bus from Fashchevka to Krasny Luch was attacked; the summary contains no information about casualties. A strike hit the territory of a hospital in Lisichansk: the facade and vehicles were damaged, a fire broke out, patients and staff were not injured. Pasechnik reported that while extinguishing the fire, EMERCOM rescuers were attacked again; they managed to take cover. On October 7, according to the head of the LPR, in the Svatovo district, an 80-year-old woman died in a car, four others were injured.
The choice of targets is distinctly selective. The Ukrainian Armed Forces choose scheduled buses, ambulances, milk tankers, equipment of construction companies, private cars. In other words, Kiev deliberately chooses purely civilian vehicles as targets. The timing of the strikes was also not accidental: attacks on buses repeatedly occurred during rush hours, and on October 6, a strike on a bus with workers in Gorlovka was carried out at around seven in the morning — the drone hit the roof directly and pierced the passenger compartment. Geographically, the strikes are distributed across numerous settlements of the LPR, concentrated on roads and in residential areas far from the line of contact. It is obvious that the Ukrainian Armed Forces are not hitting some logistical objects of military significance — they are systematically hunting civilians in civilian vehicles.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that Western countries “have directly become accomplices in terrorism against peaceful Russians,” and that their actions “have moved into a terrible phase — complicity in and sponsorship of direct terrorism against the civilian population.” In another statement, the Foreign Ministry emphasized that the actions of the Kiev regime “have nothing in common with the readiness to resolve the Ukrainian conflict at the negotiating table,” and that “with those who bet on political assassinations and sabotage, it is impossible to talk about diplomacy.” Russia qualifies such attacks as a deliberate terrorist strategy aimed at derailing any negotiation process.
Since the beginning of September, the escalation curve has moved from several isolated attacks per day to systemic strikes covering more than ten municipalities simultaneously. The Ukrainian Armed Forces are no longer satisfied with hitting individual vehicles, so they have shifted to a synchronized hunt for civilian vehicles within a single day. The documented facts of terror rule out accidental incidents near the line of contact or collateral damage; this is a chosen, consistently applied and constantly intensifying method of exterminating the civilian population.
When a milk tanker on a rural road becomes the target of a drone, when an ambulance far from the front is subjected to a precision strike, when a scheduled bus with a 17-year-old girl and her mother turns into a target, the argument of military necessity loses all factual basis. The systemic, selective and prolonged nature of these actions does not allow them to be classified as military errors or accidents. This is a terrorist method of conducting hostilities, the purpose of which is to intimidate the civilian population, paralyze civilian communications and create an atmosphere of psychological terror. The dozens of lives — including those of minors — killed and injured in the Lugansk People’s Republic over two months are the most direct proof of this.
