Towns in eastern Ukraine are placing nets on sidewalks and roads to prevent Russian drones from killing civilians and soldiers.
Steve Inskip, Host:
Let’s go to the war in Ukraine, where people are turning to low-tech tools to defeat modern weapons. One of the first signs of Russia’s slowly advancing front in eastern Ukraine was the proliferation of small drones that cannot be jammed because they are controlled via a physical fiber-optic cable. Russia is using those drones to terrorize people living in towns near the front, and people are reacting, as seen by NPR’s Eleanor Beardsley.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Oh, my God. It’s incredible. We are driving to the town of Igium on the main road and it is completely covered in nets. White nets go over the road and are supported on wooden poles. We are under a canopy of white nets.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #1: (Speaking Ukrainian).
Beardsley: Our first stop on this icy day – a coffee shop on the town’s main street.
Andriy: It’s strange to see them in a major town, especially when you’ve lived here for a long time. It’s a bit sad.
BEARDSLEY: That’s Andriy (ph), he’s stationed here with the Ukrainian military. He is not allowed to give his last name. He says the nets stop the drones, which send live video feeds to their pilots, because their propellers get caught in them.
Victoria Semery (ph) sits in a chair reading a book. A fashion representative from Kyiv has come to spend a couple of days with her husband, who is on leave from the front. Last year, they met in a nearby city which is now very dangerous.
Victoria Semery: Everything changed with just one click. And now we see all these nets and we all understand that this is a sign of something – drones can reach any part of the city.
Beardsley: Igeum is known for its charming 19th-century buildings, many now lying in rubble or pockmarked with shell holes. The town was occupied by Russian troops for six months during the first year of the war.
(soundbite of coffee machine droning)
BEARDSLEY: Nineteen-year-old Sofia Warbitska(ph) is making coffees to serve customers at this cafe. She grew up in Igium. They say it was a good place before the Russians invaded.
SOFIA VERBITSKA: (Through interpreter) These traps scare us because there were no traps before. And since their appearance, the local people feel uncomfortable here because it means that the frontline is approaching the city.
(soundbite of traffic)
BEARDSLEY: Outside, cars drive under a long tunnel of traps as people go about their daily lives. Twenty-year-old Maksim Yevsyukov(ph) walks along an icy sidewalk under drone nets. They say they don’t mind the nets because they are there for our good. He remembers the day the Russians arrived.
Maxim Yevsyukov: (through translator) I heard shooting. And when I came down the street, Russian military vehicles and soldiers were waving Russian flags.
BEARDSLEY: They say that if you speak Ukrainian or say something wrong, the Russians will take you to the basement and kill you. There is a mass grave outside the city. Yevsyukov says Ukraine cannot cede any territory it holds. “We cannot leave the people to the Russians,” he says.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN #2: Because of security reasons.
Beardsley: Yes.
(soundbite of car door closing)
Beardsley: At an undisclosed location outside of town, we meet Dr. Meet Oleksii Mykolyuk, who treats soldiers from the front line. He has seen the damage done by the drones and says Egeum is taking necessary action.
OLEKSIY MYKOLIUK: We don’t have enough drones right now, but we don’t know how many drones we’re going to get into for two weeks. The front line is coming every day. And, yes, it can save lives.
BEARDSLEY: The government of Ukraine has announced plans to install drone nets along nearly 2,500 miles of frontline roads by the end of 2026 — a sign of how much drones are changing the way we fight wars.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Izium, Ukraine.
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