Rabbi Yosef Yitzchak Wolff, director of Chabad-Lubavitch of Kherson, along with his wife and daughter, escaped unharmed after their vehicle was struck by a Russian suicide drone in a direct hit on their car.

The harrowing incident occurred on Thursday evening local time, as the Wolffs—the rabbi, his wife Chaya and their 19-year-old daughter—approached their hometown of Kherson in southern Ukraine. They were about a kilometer and a half from a checkpoint at the approach to the city when the rabbi suddenly noticed a deadly drone hovering overhead.

“I just saw it, for an instant, and then a few seconds later there was a crazy explosion,” the shaken rabbi told Chabad.org. “You can see a picture of the car. It’s a miracle that we’re alive and well. You can’t call it anything else—a miracle.”

The rabbi is no stranger to war, his hometown of Kherson having seen much fighting since the start of the war in 2022, but this was closer than ever. The UAV struck the Wolff’s Toyota Land Cruiser directly, destroying the entire front half of the car. “Of course I’ve heard these drones in the air before, but not like this—attacking you directly,” he said.

The person driving behind the Wolffs stopped his car and took Chaya Wolff and their daughter, Raizi, home, while the rabbi was picked up by a member of the Jewish community of Kherson. The Wolff’s blasted vehicle remains sitting on the highway.

Rabbi Wolff and his wife established Chabad of Kherson in 1993, two years after the fall of Communism. Under the Wolff’s leadership, Kherson has become home to a plethora of Jewish activities, including a day school, summer camp, soup kitchen and mikvah.

“We feel born again,” the rabbi reflected mere hours after the attack. “The Talmud says ‘messengers of a mitzvah are not harmed.’ We were driving to Kherson to be with our community—a mitzvah—so we were, thank G‑d, unharmed. All I can say is do something good for another person, and leave the rest to G‑d.”