Ukraine's fishing net defense against high-tech threat shows the challenges for Kyiv to respond to Russia's summer offensive

CNN

2 days ago

The last lifelines into besieged towns along the eastern front line for Ukrainian troops, caught in a web of increasingly lethal and sophisticated drone warfare, rely on a technology millennia old: a fishing net.
Strung up on poles along the roadside, the nets provide cover for Ukrainian troops from Russian drones often circulating deep inside their territory, as the tiny explosive devices get caught in their tough string.
Few places are this low-tech defense against a high-tech threat more vital than Kostiantynivka, one of three frontline towns where Ukrainian forces are increasingly at risk of encirclement by a Russian summer offensive, rapidly turning incremental gains into a strategic advantage.
A Ukrainian commander defending the area told CNN he had not received new personnel in his unit for eight months and was only resupplying frontline positions – where sometimes a pair of soldiers hold off over a dozen Russian attackers – with drones, as vehicles would not reach the trenches.
Near Kostiantynivka, locals pass unperturbed in the gaps they have made in the nets – their daily needs more vital than the net's protection – leaving holes sometimes exploited by the more deft Russian drone operators. Moscow's elite drone unit, Sudnyi Den have posted video of their drones inside the netting, sometimes working in pairs. In footage from July 20, one drone strikes a Ukrainian military SUV, while another films the impact as it sits on the gravel nearby, waiting for another target.
Four civilians have been killed and 31 injured over the past week, due to Russian strikes, according to Kostiantynivka City Officials. The children have been evacuated and just over 8,000 civilians remain in the town itself.
Its streets are peppered with cars struck by Russian drones, over the last month when the town came into range of advancing Russian forces. Even on the town's safer edges, a white minivan sat abandoned, its passenger side crumpled in from a drone strike hours earlier on Saturday. The driver of the vehicle was killed, the local governor said Sunday, even though the explosives on the drone failed to detonate.
Lying nearby is a tangle of thin string that is defining the war now – not fishing net, but fiber-optic cable, used to prevent drones being jammed. Russian and Ukrainian operators use tens of kilometers of the razor-thin glass wires to stay physically attached to some drones – the cables stretching out across vast expanses of the battlefield – enabling them to directly control the devices in spite of any jamming.
Shuffling past the ruins, is Tatiana, who is returning from her old home on the outskirts of town, where she has fed her dog and collected some possessions. 'It Is heavy there, really heavy,' she said. 'Nobody on the street. I have nowhere else to go'.
In the past week, according to mapping by the open-source monitor DeepState, Russian forces have advanced to within eight kilometers of the town's south-eastern edges, and to its south-west. Maintaining incremental progress at the cost of huge casualties has been the hallmark of Moscow's war effort for years, but the simultaneous advances around the eastern towns of Pokrovsk and Kostiantynivka and, further north, Kupiansk, risk giving Russian President Vladimir Putin a reshaped front line and transforming his claim on the Ukrainian Donetsk region, a key goal.
Kostiantynivka's central market is still an oasis of activity, where locals bustle to gather food, despite the risk of drone and artillery attacks. Many are reluctant to let their faces be filmed, an indication they might fear being labelled pro-Ukrainian in the event the town is soon occupied. 'Now they will bomb us,' said one elderly woman, a reference to fears Russian forces use news footage to assist targeting.
Another man, who did not give his name, a native of Azerbaijan selling fruit, loudly proclaimed 'Glory to Ukraine' and 'Glory to the Heroes,' pro-Ukrainian slogans. 'What do you see?' he asked. 'There is no calm today. Shooting, of course.'
Control for the skies takes place underground. Vasyl, a local commander, purveys a bank of monitors inside his basement. The war now is split in two: those hunted by drones on the horrific front lines, and the hunters themselves, their drone operations bunkers and positions hit often by airstrikes. On the screen behind Vasyl, a mushroom cloud burrows into the sky – a Russian airstrike trying to target Ukrainian operators.
His enduring problem is people: for eight months Vasyl, from the 93rd Mechanized Brigade, has not been sent new personnel. 'We have a critical shortage of personnel. No one wants to fight. The war is over (for them). The old personnel are left, they are tired and want to be replaced, but no one is replacing them.'
Vasyl's remaining infantry hold positions sometimes in pairs and are delivered food, water and ammunition in the half-light of dawn or dusk when the larger Ukrainian Vampire quadcopter drones can fly. 'We load 10 kilograms of supplies,' he said. 'And it flies 12-15 kilometers, carrying supplies. Food, ammunition, batteries, chargers for radio stations.' Frontline positions are so vulnerable to Russian drones that mortar teams often have to walk many hours on foot, Vasyl said, carrying 30 kilograms of ammunition and equipment.
The commander said newer Russian drone teams, known as the Rubicon unit, are well-trained and professional, sometimes using only a thread, dangled by another drone flying on top of a Ukrainian device, to entangle in its rotors and cause the Ukrainian drone to crash.
Vasyl said poor communication from the front lines of the nature of military problems was a serious issue. 'A lot of things are not communicated and are hidden' he said. 'We don't communicate a lot of things to our state. Our state doesn't communicate a lot of things to the people.'
'To understand the situation, you have to be in it,' he said. 'When we say that the situation is difficult, no one understands. You have to be in our shoes. We are tired. Everyone is tired of this war, and I believe that other countries are also tired of helping us.'