On 17 March 2026, a TV crew from Ukraine’s public broadcaster Suspilne Dnipro, including journalist Roman Mykhalchuk and camera operator Danyil Nikolayenko, avoided an attack by a Russian FPV (first-person view) drone that was allegedly “hunting the team” in Demuryne village, Mezhyvska community in the Dnipropetrovsk region.
According to the journalist, the TV crew was in the area to film a report on the lives of local residents of the village, which is located approximately 13 kilometres from the frontline. Mykhalchuk said that following the filming the crew had gotten into a car and driven for approximately 10 metres when their drone detector intercepted footage as seen by the FPV drone operator. “On the detector screen, I saw a train station – they have a railway station there that is no longer operational – and we were literally next to it, maybe 100 metres away at most. We quickly drove the car right under a tree. Because there was nowhere (else) to hide there,” Mykhalchuk described, speaking to Ukraine’s Institute of Mass Information (IMI).
The crew then left their vehicle and hid between a tree and a damaged fence. The closest shelter was located at the railway station, “but it was extremely dangerous to run the few dozen metres towards it,” Mykhalchuk said. He added that the drone proceeded to circle directly above them and that the crew is confident that it was aimed at them. “The village is almost deserted, and plus this was already at the exit from the village, further on there is (only) a field, some abandoned buildings, an abandoned factory that had (already) been bombed… The next village is a few kilometres away from there. We realised that it was definitely behind us, because we were alone and on the street, and there was only one (our) car,” Mykhalchuk said.
The crew stayed in hiding for around five minutes until they heard an explosion. Nikolayenko said that “as soon as there was silence, we ran as fast as we could from there. Maybe it (the drone) fell 100 metres from us or even closer.” The TV crew was wearing protective gear with Press-markings. Mykhalchuk told IMI that local residents had told them that drones hunt cars, and that they themselves saw two “completely burned-out cars”, adding: “And here is our car, we are in “armour” (bullet-proof vests) with the inscription PRESS… The FPV drone operator definitely saw all this and clearly aimed the drone at us. In my opinion, this was a direct attack on us as media workers.”