Volunteer Yevhen Tkachov was driving an elderly couple out of the village of Zorya near Kostyantynivka, Donetsk Region, when at least four FPV drones attacked the car and the people, a correspondent for LB.ua reported.
Around 9 a.m., volunteer Yevhen left Zorya village, which is located at least 4 km from the territory occupied by Russian troops. Up to fifty people live there.
"I was taking out a family of elderly people," the volunteer told LB. "We were followed by two other families of elderly people in two cars. My car was branded (a red civilian car with a sticker of the Proliska humanitarian mission - LB), and the other two had white ribbons."
The volunteer usually travelled in one car, and had seen several burnt cars on the road before. However, due to the declared ceasefire, he decided to take out an elderly couple and accompany two more civilian cars. An elderly couple and a Japanese journalist were in the car.
"We heard a buzzing noise, stopped the car, jumped out: there was an FPV in front of us, it hovered, I started to show him that we were civilians. Despite this, it crashed next to the car. The wheels were punctured, the car did not start. And then the second FPV appeared and I gave a sign for those other cars to pass. The second FPV made two or three circles over us, he had a good look at everything, and despite this, it hit a few metres away from the old people. The woman was wounded in the thigh," he said.
Then Yevhen and his passengers ran into the bushes. When they hid about 200 metres from the car, a third drone hit it. Later, more drones appeared in the area. Civilians were only able to take documents, medicine and water.
The civilians were rescued by chaplain Oleksandr Reshetnyk, who, at Tkachev's request, took the risk of going to pick them up. Now the elderly people are in a hospital in Kostyantynivka. At home, Yevhen himself noticed that a fragment had hit him in the leg.
Yevhen Tkachev has been helping civilians since 2014: he takes them out of dangerous areas and brings humanitarian aid (water, construction materials, etc.) from the Proliska organisation. Even before the war, he helped homeless and elderly people in Chasiv Yar, where he set up a hospice for them.
In January 2024, an FPV drone hit Tkachov's car in Chasiv Yar when he was bringing water for a local woman. The luggage compartment of the car caught fire, but the car remained on fire. In February 2025, during the evacuation from Mykolayivka, seven artillery shells exploded near the volunteer's car. The fragments damaged the car body and broke the windows.