‘They started bombing us with drones’: Russian attacks unnerve Zaporizhzhia

Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine – There are only eight people left in Volodymyr’s village. That was the last count he remembers before deciding to leave.

“We were in the cellar when they started bombing us with drones,” he said, nervously rubbing his red, blistered hands together. “As you can see, I was completely burned.”

Last week, he fled his home in Preobrazhenka, just over 40km (25 miles) from where he now sits in a shelter for displaced people in the regional capital, Zaporizhzhia.

The villages south of Zaporizhzhia have been coming under escalating Russian attacks.

On November 2, in one of this year’s deadliest attacks in Ukraine, nine Russian glide bombs struck the town of Komyshuvakha, killing at least 50 people. Many had gathered to receive humanitarian aid at a local school. Several people are still missing, feared dead under the rubble.

The constant threat of bombs and drones makes everyday life almost unbearable.

Over the past three years, this war has proven that an army no longer needs boots on the ground.

The arrival of Russian First-Person-View (FPV) drones overhead is often a sign of the Russian infantry’s gradual advance. Well-documented footage shows these drones deliberately targeting vehicles and civilians on the streets. Ukrainians say drones have stalked civilians in cities including Kherson, Kramatorsk and Sloviansk.

Now, Zaporizhzhia is showing some of the same warning signs.

The city administration is doing what it can to protect residents, installing anti-drone netting over streets and civilian infrastructure in the Cosmos neighbourhood. But boarded-up windows and bombed-out buildings across the city show how difficult it is to mitigate the threat once the drones arrive.

Denys Knysh, a regional military administration official, says authorities are preparing to relocate the shelter where Volodymyr is staying to another neighbourhood “if the situation gets worse”.

Many in the shelter are elderly or have limited mobility. Some lack the documents they need to relocate, making evacuation more difficult.

Others prefer to stay in Zaporizhzhia, close to their former homes, holding on to hope that the war will end and they can return.

Since the beginning of the war, Zaporizhzhia has provided refuge for thousands of internally displaced people fleeing Russia’s occupation. People have arrived from cities like Mariupol and Melitopol, which fell under Russian control early in the conflict.

Now, as the security situation deteriorates, some of those who once fled to Zaporizhzhia for safety face the prospect of having to leave again.

Alina, who works in a flower shop beneath protective drone netting, said, “Of course I may have to leave, but I don’t want to.”

She hears the buzz of Russian drones almost every day.

Nearby, along the Pryberezhna Highway that follows the river, every petrol station and business is covered in the protective netting.

“It’s scary and dangerous, everything is flying around. Just today a drone flew over us,” said Nataliia, an employee at a petrol station.

Earlier that day, Russian Banderol missiles, a type of low-cost, jet-powered cruise missile, struck a shopping mall and the main bridge into the city. An FPV drone also hit a city bus.

Zaporizhzhia still has signs of normality. Twinkling lights hang over restaurant terraces and some streets still buzz with life.

But the transition is rarely clear-cut.

People gradually adapt to each new threat. It starts with streets covered in nets. Then drone jammers on the roofs of city buses. Bridges bear gaping holes from attacks. Children walk around carrying drone detectors.

Knysh says authorities are ready to evacuate the city if and when that time comes.

“It’s very difficult to calculate [how many people are left in the city] because every day people leave Zaporizhzhia,” he told Al Jazeera. “The demographic in Google doesn’t correspond to the reality.”