'We're being hunted': Russian attacks on Ukrainian emergency services rise ahead of Trump-Putin talks

Sky News

2 days ago

A Russian drone hits a petrol station in Kherson, near Ukraine's frontline, on 6 July.
When a fire engine from the State Emergency Service of Ukraine (DSNS) responds, a second drone dives towards it. It's one of 16 attacks on emergency vehicles in July identified by Sky News, three times more than the previous month.
Sky News geolocated these videos, posted on the Telegram channel of a Russian drone unit operating in Kherson, and verified them with photos posted of the damaged truck by DSNS. No casualties were reported in the attack.
Russian brigades often post video footage from first person view (FPV) drone strikes in Ukraine on their Telegram channels.
The videos posted to Telegram from FPV drones show emergency vehicles clearly.
The Russian brigade that posted the videos captioned them "Kherson DSNS. The State Emergency Service becomes a target if obstacles are created to the completion of combat missions. Transport is disabled, manpower is not harmed - the goal is achieved!"
Later that day, a Russian soldier wrote a post on Telegram that matches the above video.
The soldier included the pictures of the damaged vehicle, shared by DSNS, which he captions: "Any movement of vehicles will be considered a legitimate target."
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Increasing attacks
This incident was one of dozens confirmed by the Sky News Data & Forensics team. Analysing Ukrainian press releases and verifying drone footage we identified 82 incidents of emergency vehicles targeted by Russia since January 2024.
And our analysis has identified an increase in such attacks in the month before President Trump and President Putin are due to meet for peace talks in Alaska. Attacks on emergency response vehicles have increased this summer, peaking in July 2025.
The press releases compiled do not include incidents where rescue vehicles were targeted by Russian forces but not struck and do not include attacks on emergency service personnel where vehicles were not involved.
The high number of incidents indicates a pattern of attacks targeting civilian medical personnel, which is prohibited by the Geneva Convention.
"The Russians target emergency vehicles to try to destroy the will of Ukrainians to fight," Melinda Haring, non-resident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Eurasia Centre, told Sky News.
"They want to try and convince Ukrainians not to become medics, not to volunteer, they want to make it as dangerous as possible, and they have no regard for human life, so they're not going to abide by any kind of international law."
The high level of attacks in July has continued into this month.
On the evening of 6 August, a 23-year-old rescue worker Danylo Khyzhnyak was killed in a direct artillery strike on an ambulance responding to an earlier attack in Nikopol, a city on the Dnipro river that has faced near constant Russian bombardment.
Intentional strikes on emergency services
All vehicles in front-line areas risk being targeted by Russian drones, but emergency services are particularly vulnerable as they respond to previous Russian attacks.
The Atlantic Council's Haring said: "It's no exaggeration to say that Russia favours the tactic of double tap. Double tap is when there's a hit and emergency workers go in and then there's the second strike to wipe out the emergency workers."
"[Russia is] using it quite aggressively in Ukraine. We've seen it in Odesa, we've seen it in Zaporizhzhia, we have seen it in Dnipro and Kharkiv. In every major city."
The Russian Embassy disputed this when it was put to them by Sky News, saying all strikes are directed exclusively at military or military-industrial assets.
Maksym Kurchyk, head of the Kherson Regional Municipal Emergency Rescue Service (HOKARS), is well aware of the risks his team takes.
He told Sky News: "[Russian soldiers] like to have double strikes when we go to the location and they try to attack us again.
"The Russians monitor us and on their social media warn that we are a priority target for them. We are being hunted," he said.
In the drone videos posted to Telegram from Russian brigades emergency services insignia is often visible.
Vitalii Poberezhnyi, researcher for Ukrainian investigative group Truth Hounds, told Sky News: "The attacks against emergency service are really intentional, because the drone operators have a clear image of what they are attacking.
"The emergency services, they have very clear insignia that you cannot misinterpret. You cannot misinterpret a medic as someone else or a firefighter as someone else".
Article 15 of Additional Protocol I to the Geneva Convention states civilian medical personnel must be respected and protected in all circumstances.
A July 2024 report from the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) confirmed Russian double-tap strikes on civilian targets in Ukraine constitute a war crime.
The report states: "Conducting a new attack on the same location or target during the timeframe in which medical and other emergency response workers would be known or foreseeably expected to be on scene to assist victims raises serious concerns, at the very least, as to a lack of sufficient precaution required under IHL [International Humanitarian Law] to minimize harm caused to civilians. If the documented attacks were conducted with the purpose of killing or injuring first responders or other civilians, they would constitute deliberate attacks on civilians, a war crime."
In response to Sky News' findings Sergey Lavrov, minister of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation, said: "The Russian Armed Forces have never regarded Ukrainian civilian population as a target. All strikes are directed exclusively at military or military-industrial assets. However numerous examples of the Ukrainian army's abuse of the Red Cross insignia are well known.
"We also advise that Sky News keep its viewers updated on multiple cases of deliberate use of drones and missiles by Ukraine against Russian civilian targets, including houses, markets, parking areas etc. with the only aim of sowing terror among the population."
Lavrov did not provide evidence of these claims.
More attacks in eastern Ukrainian cities
Sky News mapped the verified attacks, revealing that over 2024 and 2025, the attacks have been predominately focused on the east of Ukraine, in cities near the frontline.
Attacks on emergency service vehicles were especially high in Kherson, in the south of the country, where Russian and Ukrainian forces are only divided by the Dnipro river.
Poberezhnyi, the Truth Hounds researcher, explained: "When you attack emergency services, you make it harder for civilians to live in such places because these attacks give this sense of insecurity to civilians."
"[Russian forces are] trying to give this sense of insecurity to the people that they will not receive medical help, that they wouldn't be assisted in extinguishing fires if their property is engulfed in flames due to shellings."
In the first seven months of 2025 Truth Hounds verified more small drone attacks on civilian population, property and infrastructure than in 2023 and 2024 combined showing an escalation in drone use.
Fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces reached a new peak in July, data from conflict monitoring group ACLED shows.
Volunteer emergency service charities operating in Ukraine have also been targeted.
Two ambulances donated by Project Hope, a healthcare non-profit working in frontline districts in Ukraine, to local emergency services have been attacked.
In early July, a Project Hope ambulance operated by the Kharkiv Regional Emergency Medical Center was attacked by a drone near Kupiansk hospital in eastern Ukraine.
Dr Ruslan Aghayev, medical coordinator for Project Hope in Ukraine, told Sky News: "These were the branded ambulances and all attacks were during the daytime. The FPV operator had seen what kind of vehicle he's attacking."
On 8 August Dr Olga Yakovlieva, acting director of the Kostiantynivka Primary Health Care Center, a partner facility with Project Hope, died following a Russian attack on a medical service vehicle in Kostiantynivka, Donetsk Oblast, in eastern Ukraine.
The medical vehicle had hospital markings and red crosses and was struck by a drone.
Rabih Torbay, Project Hope's chief executive and president, said: "As President Trump prepares to meet with President Putin in Alaska this week, we urge him to defend the sanctity of health care by condemning Russia's deliberate targeting of health workers, ambulances, and health facilities - actions that are not only morally corrupt but are flagrant violations of International Humanitarian Law."
The Scottish Emergency Rescue Association (SERA) has been delivering fire engines to the frontline for several years.
SERA told Sky News: "We are forced to constantly request new fire engines, as they are easy targets for the enemy, and the number of attacks only continues to grow."
Despite the dangers Kurchyk, the Kherson Regional Municipal Emergency Rescue Service head, is not planning to stop working.
"It's difficult for everyone, but we all understand that we need to help people, and we put ourselves at risk, but we believe that we are rescuers and our job is to help," he said.
Additional reporting by visual investigations producer Michelle Inez Simon, digital investigations journalist Kaitlin Tosh and OSINT producers Freya Gibson and Sam Doak.
The Data and Forensics team is a multi-skilled unit dedicated to providing transparent journalism from Sky News. We gather, analyse and visualise data to tell data-driven stories. We combine traditional reporting skills with advanced analysis of satellite images, social media and other open source information. Through multimedia storytelling we aim to better explain the world while also showing how our journalism is done.