Russians scale up the use of nets against drones

11 February, 2025 A mesh tunnel to protect against drones. Photo from open source The Russian military has created a "tunnel" of nets about 2 km long to protect its equipment from drones near Chasiv Yar.

Military and radio technology specialist Sergei Flesh posted the video. In the video, the commander of the Russian group of the separate engineer battalion of the 3rd Army Corps of the "South" grouping discusses more than 2 km of anti-drone nets that their group is working on. "We are constantly improving the technology.

The nets are installed on the most open sections of the roads to protect the movement of our equipment. We try to constantly increase the coverage area. We are improving the technology of installing the nets to do it faster," he noted.

The published video captures the tunnel as being made of plastic and fabric mesh stretched on wooden poles along the dirt road. According to the plan, the FPV drone that will attack the vehicles on this section of the road should not notice this grid and get confused by it due to the low quality of analog video.

However, even if the drone operator detects the grid, he still won't be able to get close enough to hit the target. An additional advantage of the physical defense is that it protects against all types of kamikaze drones, including fiber optic drones. Although this design is relatively inexpensive, it requires man-hours to install and possibly digging in the posts.

Then, there's the matter of stretching the mesh, all of which has to be done in the area affected by enemy drones. In addition, such large engineering structures require constant maintenance and repair.

The mesh used to create the tunnel. Freeze frame from the video by Serhiy Flesh

However, if installed, for example, in relatively rear areas, they significantly reduce the risk of attack drones damaging equipment and logistics.

It is worth noting that Russian experiments with nets to protect roads from drones are not new. The first publicly known structures of this type were spotted in the summer of 2023 near Bakhmut. However, it was not a solid tunnel but rather separate nets stretched over the road, where drones were supposed to get tangled.

The first known experiments with road protection with nets.

Bakhmut, summer 2023. Photo: Serhiy Sternenko

Already in the summer of 2024, the Russian media outlet TASS reported that the Russian military in the Kupyansk section of the frontline began covering vehicle routes with fishing nets. The nets were set up along the roads, creating safe corridors.

A section of the road is covered with a net, summer 2024.

Photo: @JanR210

At the same time, it was reported that a regular fishing net was better than a chain-link net. This is because the netting is a guarantee that the FPV drone will detonate, while in a fishing net, drones get confused and do not detonate. In early November 2024, it was reported that the Ukrainian military started shooting down Russian reconnaissance quadcopters over the battlefield using netting.

Mesh launchers from the Ukrainian company Ptashka Drones