Ukraine: “Any Male is a Target”

Yevheniia Virlich

Contributor

Thursday, 4 September, 2025

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A 22-year-old Russian serviceman has been sentenced to 12 years in absentia for a drone strike on civilians in the first such conviction of its kind in the Kherson region.

The trial was particularly significant due not only to the systematic nature of Russian drone attacks on civilians in this region, but also because of the difficulties investigators have faced identifying perpetrators.

In June 2025, Stepan Suminin – a corporal in the 10th Separate Special Purpose Brigade of Russia’s Main Intelligence Directorate - was found guilty by the Velyka Oleksandrivka District Court of operating a Mavic quadcopter with an attached munition to attack two civilians in the village of Odradokamianka in the Beryslav district.

The attack took place on May 12, 2023 as the married couple was walking down a street in the village, which had been under constant attack from the Russian army –primarily from drone and artillery fire – since it was liberated by Ukrainian defence forces in November 2022.

On hearing an approaching drone, the pair took cover in roadside bushes. Believing the drone had left, the man - identified only as Serhii - then stepped back onto the road to check the scene. At this point a VOG-17 grenade was dropped near the 51-year-old, causing severe injuries to his leg, chest and the fingers of his right hand. 

Serhii told investigators that he and his wife were wearing civilian clothing and could not have been mistaken for combatants. They were carrying nothing and there were no military targets or personnel in the vicinity.

The prosecution collected evidence including testimony from Serhii and his wife as well as munition fragments recovered from the survivor’s body and the attack scene.

In addition, they presented a photo of the first person view (FPV) drone that Suminin had sent to acquaintances, as well as Telegram messages sent to his brother and commander in which he confessed to the attack. 

This body of evidence allowed prosecutors to prove in the court that the attack was a deliberate war crime.

Ukrainian journalists from Slidstvo.Info carried out an investigation after the official announcement of suspicion. In an April 14, 2025 article, the outlet identified Suminin, a native of Krasnodar, as a FPV drone operator active in the Kherson sector. A reporter called him directly in early 2025, posing as representatives of Yunarmia, a youth organisation that fosters loyalty to the Russian army among teenagers and prepares them for military service.

The journalist asked him to lead a workshop for Yunarmia members, to which he responded that he was currently serving and would only be on leave in May.

Asked if he could share any information about his work on the Kherson front, Suminin responded, “I have FPV drone footage of me engaging various targets. But that’s not the material for teenagers. And it’s absolutely not the right topic for a conversation about patriotic education. Do their parents give them permission to watch how people get killed?”

Later, journalists from Slidstvo.Info called Suminin again, this time without a cover story, but he did not answer.

On the day of the crime, Suminin sent his brother a photo of a modified Mavic drone with two munitions attached. In the messages that followed, Suminin described in detail how people were wounded when he dropped an explosive from the quadcopter. In a voice message, he explained how he had struck a designated target based on guidance from “colleagues”.

In another voice message, Suminin also informed his brother that after he dropped the munition, a report of one wounded person appeared online. 

He provided a link to a post from the head of the Beryslav Regional Military Administration, which stated that a person in Odradokamianka had been wounded by a fragmentation munition dropped from a drone. 

His brother asked, “So you dropped it on civilians, or who?” 

Suminin responded that it did not matter to him whether the wounded were military personnel or civilians and that “any male person is a target”.

Speaking to Slidstvo.Info journalists for the April 2025 article, Serhii said that he had since enlisted in the Ukrainian armed forces despite his injuries.

 “I still have a piece of shrapnel in my leg,” Serhii told them. “If my wife hadn’t been there when it happened, I never would have made it. I couldn’t even crawl on my own. It was psychologically difficult after what we went through; my wife couldn’t sleep for three nights. Eventually, we moved to Kryvyi Rih. I joined the army to get revenge on the Russians for all the grief they are bringing to our land.” 

Suminin’s case represents the first and only conviction of its kind in the Kherson region, according to Oleksii Butenko, Head of the War Crimes Department at the Kherson Regional Prosecutor’s Office.

Butenko noted that since the start of the full-scale invasion, law enforcement agencies have registered 35,286 criminal proceedings for war crimes committed by the Russian armed forces in the Kherson region. Of these, 3,339 relate to attacks using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

As a result of attacks involving UAVs, 194 civilians were killed and 1,888 persons injured.

Overall in the Kherson region, law enforcement agencies have served 158 individuals with notices of suspicion in 88 proceedings. 81 indictments against 143 individuals have been forwarded to the courts. The courts have issued 16 convictions concerning 18 individuals.

“Despite the scale of the problem, identifying the specific drone operators is extremely difficult,” Butenko said. “The key challenges during pre-trial investigations and criminal proceedings are the difficulty of identifying the direct perpetrators – the operators of UAVs, who can be five to 15 km away from the impact site – as well as the active combat operations in certain parts of the region. As a result, this makes it impossible for investigative bodies to fully carry out their duties.”

The verdict against Suminin is therefore significant, demonstrating that even a drone operator will be held accountable. 

The ruling, which was not appealed, has now taken effect. Suminin’s sentence will be calculated from the day of his arrest.