Ukrainian drone attacks force Russia to protect its nuclear submarines with low-tech netting
New satellite images reveal nets covering Russian submarines to protect them against Ukrainian drones. It’s a confirmation that no Moscow asset is free from Kiev’s attacks anymore, not even its prized nuclear ballistic missile submarine fleet. It is also yet another embarrassing moment for Russian President Vladimir Putin’s military forces and one more example of how, in the face of Ukrainian technological genius, the Russians need to resort to designing desperate measures as their last line of defense.
The drone targets stretch from the Pacific to the Black Sea. At the Rybachiy facility on the Kamchatka Peninsula, the nets cover Borei and Borei-A class nuclear ballistic missile submarines, the core of Moscow’s nuclear triad. At Novorossiysk, on the Black Sea, metal cages cover parts of Kilo-class attack submarines.
Russia knows that Ukraine—the first country in the world with a dedicated Unmanned Systems Forces branch—has already proven it can hit everything else. Take the unprecedented Operation Spider’s Web: On June 1, 2025, Kiev’s special commandos launched short-range strikes using 117 drones against multiple Russian Aerospace Forces’ bombers (the second component of Putin’s atomic triad) from inside Russia’s own borders.
Following that, on June 3, 2026, Ukrainian drones flew roughly 620 miles to hit the Kronstadt naval facility near St. Petersburg, striking the corvette Boikiy in dry dock and setting it on fire, while secondary groups hit the 15th Arsenal munitions warehouses in Lebyazhye.
“Last night, our drones covered a distance of about 1,000 kilometers to the St. Petersburg region—to the enemy navy’s arsenals and a base in Kronstadt,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said at the time. And the Black Sea campaign never stopped: Missiles and air and sea drones have torn into multiple Russian Navy ships in repeated attacks on its bases there, the latest attack happening on August 12.
Knowing it can’t down waves of multiple incoming targets, Moscow has resorted again to hanging netting to defend its most precious nuclear assets. It’s a low-tech solution to a high-tech problem: The nets will catch the drones before they can hit the subs.
Earlier in August, imagery from satellite survey company Vantor showed personnel at the Kamchatka Peninsula facility suspending mesh over the moored nuclear ballistic missile submarines. In addition to that, floating booms ring the docks to intercept explosive uncrewed surface vessels. Large crane ships spent May through August positioning the overhead defenses.
The practice began with what Russia’s own soldiers call the “roads of death,” supply routes where Ukrainian first-person view (FPV) drones, piloted with game controllers and headsets, left hundreds of ruined trucks and armor. Russian troops were forced to improvise a 2-kilometer tunnel of plastic mesh strung on makeshift posts. The tactic mimics the barrage balloons Allied forces floated during World War II to obstruct dive bombers.
Some sections were fully enclosed; others were just overhead banners meant to physically block diving drones. “Our group maintains more than 2 kilometers of anti-drone nets. We constantly improve the technology,” a Russian soldier said in a state TV broadcast at the time. “The nets are placed in the most exposed sections of the road to ensure the safe movement of our equipment. We strive to continuously expand the coverage area, enhancing the installation technology to set them up more quickly.”
Cheap, sloppy, and ineffective
Russia first leaned on electronic warfare to jam the drones. Ukraine adapted using artificial intelligence, fiber-optic cables, and changing control frequencies. Putin’s forces, undersupplied and overwhelmed by the constant needling of FPV drones and swarms, couldn’t do anything but try to add a weak layer of defense.
But Ukrainian drone operators say the netting won’t hold: They just have to destroy it using other drones. Air-detonated fragmentation warheads (effectively airborne Claymore mines) can punch shrapnel through the mesh, clearing a path for follow-up drones to hit convoys packed tight inside, unable to scatter. From there, they can just keep using FPV suicide drones, bomber drones, or incendiary “dragon drones” built to slip inside the netted corridors and douse them in thermite, a chemical compound that burns at 4,000 degrees Fahrenheit—hot enough to melt through armor and kill anyone inside.
While soldiers tried to survive, the Russian Navy has been improvising defenses for two years. In 2024, the Delta-IV nuclear submarine Tula appeared at Gadzhiyevo, Barents Sea fjords, wearing early anti-drone protection. At Novorossiysk, crews painted a flat submarine outline on the pier and erected a dummy conning tower to fool weapons with autonomous visual targeting.
Then came the cages. “The Russian Black Sea Fleet has equipped three of its four Kilo-class submarines with counter-UAS [uncrewed aerial systems] cages covering the vessels’ conning towers. This was applied as a preventive measure in response to Ukraine’s increased ability to strike targets further from the front line,” British authorities reported. “Analysis of commercial satellite imagery dated 13 June 2026 identified that three of the submarines had loosened their moorings and had submerged within the basin. Whilst the majority of the hull was below the surface, their conning towers remained above the waterline, explaining the need for the counter-UAS cage.”
Nobody knows how long it will be before a nuclear submarine loaded with nuclear ballistic missiles gets hit by Kiev’s unmanned machines. The Ukrainians are pounding Russia’s Black Sea and Sea of Azov targets again and again, merging sea and air platforms into uncrewed surface vessels launching aerial kamikaze drones, and adding compact satellite communications capable of finding, targeting, and hitting moving targets in the Sea of Azov (90 vessels just in July).
Rybachiy, however, sits some 4,500 miles from Ukraine—far beyond any drone Kiev has ever flown. But Operation Spider’s Web proved that drones don’t have to fly from Ukraine. So it seems logical to assume that the question is not if it will happen, but when.