UN condemns Russia drone strike on aid convoy News
Alex Blokha, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons
UN condemns Russia drone strike on aid convoy

The UN on Tuesday condemned a Russian drone strike on a humanitarian convoy delivering aid to Bilozerka, a town nine kilometers from the front line in the Kherson region of southern Ukraine.

The UN stated in a press release that an “inter-agency convoy” of four trucks carrying hygiene kits, medicines and shelter materials was attacked by the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation on Tuesday. “Intensive artillery fire started” while supplies were being offloaded. Two of the trucks, marked as belonging to the World Food Programme (WFP), were targeted by “first-person-view drones” and set on fire. There were no injuries or casualties. The Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) in Ukraine posted a video on X showing the aftermath of the attack.

The Assistant Secretary-General, Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Ukraine, Matthias Schmale, stated that “[d]eliberately targeting humanitarians and humanitarian assets is a gross violation of international humanitarian law and might amount to a war crime.” The Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs, Andrii Sybiha, described the attack in an X post as “[a]nother brutal violation of international law, proving Russia’s utter disregard for civilian lives and its international obligations.” He called on UN member states to condemn the attack.

Attacking humanitarian aid is prohibited under international law. Article 71(2) of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention states that relief personnel “shall be respected and protected.” Article 8(2)(b)(iii) of the Rome Statute categorizes “[i]ntentionally directing attacks against personnel, installations, material, units or vehicles involved in a humanitarian assistance or peacekeeping mission” as a war crime.

The UN reported that nearly 30% of all casualties in Ukraine in September were caused by “short-range drone attacks.” The Donetsk and Kherson regions have had particularly high casualties, comprising the majority of the 214 civilians killed and 916 injured in September. Russia has been extensively criticized for its strikes on civilian populations in the conflict with Ukraine.

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