In Olga Dolnik's upside-down world, good weather is bad and bad is good. For the 39-year-old Ukrainian, the sun inspires "fear," while misty mornings allow her to leave her home.
"It's very frustrating. I haven't been able to go to the park where I used to exercise for months," she says while guiding visitors on a walking tour of Nikopol, taking advantage of the morning fog covering the sky.
Olga claims that drones often enter the town through the well-known Shevchenka street and pass in front of her residence. "There are dozens daily," she estimates.
The walk takes her to the central market. "Several attacks have occurred here. Just like in front of the ATB supermarket [a few meters from the town hall]. A lady was killed there a few days ago," she recounts.
The walk - "it's better to walk, now the targets are the cars," the woman had explained - abruptly ends when the fog dissipates. "Beep, beep, beep, beep!". The drone detector warns that the tranquility has ended. An unmanned aircraft is approaching. They need to hide. Within seconds, the town center is shaken by a powerful explosion. A drone has just attacked a nearby gas station.
The clear sky increases alerts on local authorities' social media. "3:42 PM A kamikaze drone is heading towards the old city." "3:44 PM A kamikaze drone is heading towards the city center." "3:56 PM A kamikaze drone is heading towards the old city."
Olga hurriedly returns home. "We chose the right time to go out. Now they are passing one after another (the UAS)," she explains over the phone shortly after.
Nikopol, a small Ukrainian town located on the banks of the Dnipro River and a few kilometers from the other bank, occupied by Russian troops, is becoming a parody of the absurd reality that Kherson has been experiencing since 2024.
The population, where about 50,000 residents still live out of the nearly 108,000 it had before the Russian invasion in 2022, has been witnessing a rampant increase in unmanned aerial attacks for weeks. Just on Sunday, November 23, these devices struck four gas stations - a priority target in recent times - in the town of Marhanets, just 30 kilometers away, which functions as a suburb of Nikopol. "Two people died," indicates a local official who displays a video showing a tanker truck burning at one of those facilities. Forty-eight hours later, they did the same against two more gas stations.
The burnt fuel pumps are now a constant in both towns. One of the stations is still operating, with vehicles refueling at the active gasoline distribution machines, meters away from those that have been reduced to charred scrap. Not far from there, another station has protected its facilities with cement blocks.
"People usually refuel at night. There are lines. They are afraid to do it during the day," explains Anna Seluiko, head of a local NGO.
The city does not seem prepared for this aerial offensive. Authorities only started covering the routes with anti-drone nets in late November. The attacks have interrupted almost all internet or phone communications. There is also no television signal.
According to Ivan Bazilyuk, the military officer of the local administration, incidents with drones have increased by "50%" since early November, leaving dozens injured and several dead.
The city council does not have specific figures on drone victims. They say that since the start of the invasion in 2022, 106 civilians have died and nearly 800 have been injured, a tally that includes all types of assaults.
"They are attacking ambulances, gas stations, or civilians in their cars. It's the same terror strategy they apply in Kherson, but here they combine drones with artillery," he opines.
From his office, the detonations from the Russian side can be heard. They are so close that the sound of the projectiles being fired from those positions can be heard, followed by the explosion announcing their impact in Nikopol a few seconds later.
Nikopol's dramatic reality only differs from what is happening in Kherson in the scale of the aerial assaults. "Here, fortunately, we haven't reached Kherson's level," acknowledges Anna Seluiko.
However, what has already been dubbed as "human safaris" by the Russian UAS seems to be a practice that has spread throughout the Lower Dnipro region, following the nearly 400 kilometers of the right bank of the river under Ukrainian control. The Russians are on the left.
This was denounced in a report published by the human rights NGO Truth Hounds on November 17. According to their data, in March of last year, Kherson recorded between 600 and 700 weekly UAS attacks. The figures for Nikopol were 459 per month, from September of the previous year to March of the current year.
"The drones are not being used for selective attacks against military targets but as a tool of arbitrary violence against civilians. The aggressions are systematic and part of Russian tactics in this territory," wrote the NGO in its investigation.
After studying Russian communication channels, the inquiry concluded that Moscow's pilots have designated a 2.5-kilometer "red zone" along the entire right bank where "any movement is a legitimate target."
Nurse Andree Miroshnychenko is one of the paramedics who survived one of the infamous "hunts" by Russian devices near Nikopol in the early hours of November 4.
The 43-year-old Ukrainian was traveling in the ambulance transporting a patient to Dnipro when they saw a flash of light and were shaken by an explosion. A drone-launched device had exploded on the roof.
"We were lucky. The shrapnel entered from the side of the medications and did not affect the woman. We ran out of the ambulance and took the patient on a stretcher. We were warned that another drone was heading our way. We had to hide in a hurry in a crater and cover ourselves with clothing. All of us, the patient and us," recalls Miroshnychenko.
A few minutes later, the second UAS exploded near the ambulance. The team had to be evacuated with an armored vehicle. The paramedics, including Miroshnychenko, suffered minor injuries.
"It's not the first time they've attacked an ambulance. They want this to be a new Kherson," the nurse recounts.
Anna Seluiko, the Nikopol resident, is one of the many voices in the riverside region who believe that the area has become "a training ground" for Russian drone pilots. The military officer of the first town, Ivan Bazilyuk, clarifies that there is "no official confirmation" of this but admits that it is "what the population is saying." "We know that the pilots rotate every five or seven weeks," he adds.
In Kherson, Andree's unit - his military nickname is hidden in an old warehouse. They are assigned a truck equipped with an old Soviet-era ZU-23 machine gun.
"Here they hardly use 'Shahid' [Iranian-origin drones] anymore. It's not worth it for them. They can resort to small drones. We cover a five-kilometer area and shoot down an average of five a day," argues Andree.
According to Serhiy Hrybochok, spokesperson for the Marine Corps Coast Guard, the military has established mobile groups to shoot down the UAS, combined with units already using interception drones.
"The problem is that here the mobile units [like Andree's] have to be hidden and can only act for a very short time because they, in turn, are targets of the drones," explains the young man.