Emergency healthcare workers in wartorn Ukraine say they have been targeted by drones.
Kyiv, Ukraine – As luck would have it, emergency doctor Elina Dovzhenko was far enough from her vehicle when a Russian drone struck it, breaking the windshield and splattering pieces of shrapnel around.
It was getting dark on July 9 in the bombed-out, nearly-abandoned city of Kupiansk which sits less than 5km (3 miles) from the front line in the northeastern Ukrainian region of Kharkiv – and just 40km (25 miles) west of the Russian border.
But there was definitely enough light left for the Russian drone operator on the front line’s opposite side to see that Dovzhenko’s vehicle was a white ambulance with red stripes parked near a shelling-damaged hospital where she and her colleagues were.
“We heard the drone move, it swirled and swirled around [the building], then we heard the blast,” Dovzhenko, 29, told Al Jazeera.
