Russians kill two volunteers in Kherson while distributing free water

Russians killed two volunteers in Kherson Andrii Studynskyy and Vladyslav Zavtur in a drone attack on August 14, 2024, while the men were distributing free water to residents.

Vladyslav Zavtur and Andrii Studynskyy

“The Mavi Hilal Ukraine charitable foundation lost two volunteers at once… Last night, another one of those injured in the Dnipro district yesterday, 61-year-old Vladyslav Zavtur, passed away in hospital. Yesterday (14 August – ed.), while they were distributing free water to Kherson residents, Russian terrorists attacked the city with a drone. The driver, Andrii Studynskyy, was killed instantly, and Vladyslav Zavtur died a few hours later,” Roman Mrochko, head of the Kherson City Military Administration reported on Telegram.

Mrochko said these people had been transporting free bread and drinking water from Mykolaiv to Kherson for a long time. 

They had also started a programme to provide liquefied gas to the residents of the Antonivka district.

A day earlier, on August 14, 2024, a Russian drone attacked a vehicle of the Hospitallers volunteer medical battalion in the village of Bilyi Kolodiaz, near Vovchansk (Kharkiv Oblast), killing two medics, a man and a woman.

Serhii Bolvinov, head of the Investigation Department of the National Police in the Kharkiv Oblast, reported that there were three people in the car and all of them sustained injuries.

According to the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine, at least 219 civilians were killed and 1,018 injured in Ukraine in July 2024, which makes it the deadliest month for civilians since October 2022. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine stated that the high number of casualties in July continues a trend of increasing civilian casualties since March 2024.

The UN pointed out that a large-scale coordinated attack launched by the Russian Armed Forces across Ukraine on July 8, 2024, killed at least 43 civilians, including 5 children, and injured 147, including 7 children, in Kyiv City, Dnipro City, Kryvyi Rih (Dnipropetrovsk region) and Kyiv region.

One missile in the 8 July attack also struck a hospital complex in Kyiv city, destroying the toxicology department of the Okhmatdyt National Children’s Hospital and significantly damaging the Center for Pediatric Cardiology and Cardiac Surgery.

In June and July, the most intensive offensive military operations by the Russian Armed Forces shifted from the northern Kharkiv region to the Donetsk region, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine noted. As a result, verified civilian casualties in the Donetsk region increased from 125 civilians killed or injured in May to 224 in June and 269 in July 2024.

The vast majority of civilian casualties (90%) and damage to educational and health facilities (86%) continued to occur in Government-controlled territory.

As for now, it is impossible to determine the exact number of casualties, as Ukrainian law enforcement agencies and the representatives of the ICC have no access to the temporarily occupied territories of Ukraine.