As delivered Mr. President, Foreign Minister [of Denmark, Lars Løkke] Rasmussen, As your heard from [Under-Secretary-General for Political and Peacebuilding Affairs, Rosemary] DiCarlo, July was the deadliest month for civilians in Ukraine in over four years, with at least 437 killed and more than 2,600 injured. In the first half of the year, civilian casualties rose 37 per cent compared to last year. So, the war is not static. Of course, statistics do not capture the daily suffering. I spent last week in Ukraine. In Kherson, I witnessed how drone warfare is dismantling civilian life. The area has become a dystopian landscape of kill zones and kamikaze drones, with roads and buildings draped in anti-drone netting. Our colleagues and the local population have become experts in the sound and lethality of different models; we have seen a 60 per cent increase in First Person View, FPV, drone attacks this year, often with civilian victims. Huge resources are now directed toward subterranean schools and hospitals, as people prepare for a chilling future underground. In Kherson hospital, a kilometre from the river that marks the front line, 70 per cent of its civilian patients are being treated for blast injuries, predominantly from FPV drones. Doctors there are now accustomed to frequent mass casualty events involving civilians. I met a man recovering from an FPV attack while he was selling fruit; another who had lost both limbs, requiring three operations and 17 blood transfusions. Across the river, in Russian-controlled areas, civilians also endure the threat of drones. Drones have a persistent humanitarian impact. Civilians live in constant anxiety, knowing drones are being used to track, observe and strike them with little warning. Drone operators appear to feel detached from their victims and from the law. But neither the weapon nor the distance diminishes the unequivocal obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL), regardless of the weapon or the party, to
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