Bird nests and kilometers of garbage

Among the technologies that have been applied on the battlefield in Ukraine, few as currently recognized as one of the Mortifical weapons. We talk about drones and fiber optic cables, a lethal conjunction that has the potential to change the dynamics in the contest. In fact and how We have recentlyin Ukraine, every Russian drone that raises the flight becomes a silent bet between life and death if a cable accompanies it.

Now, in addition, technology is leaving an unpublished trail.

Invisible summer. It Forbes explained The weekend. Ukraine is entering a new phase of technological war with the massive deployment of attack drones guided by fiber optic cables, marking what is already known as The “summer of fiber drones”. Thus, in fields and villages, the remains of these systems, which leave fiber ribbons gathering as Cobbles on the groundthey have become omnipresent.

In this regard, the immediate environmental impact is already long term of the wiring kilometers remains uncertain, but From CEOBS There are works that are exploring several concerns, such as the possible release of degraded cable microplastics, pollution from hazardous chemicals such as PFAS, risks to wildlife due to physical tangles and the complications that they can mean for activities such as demining.

Not just that. Recent images even show Bird nests Built with cable fragments, an unnoticed but eloquent symbol of the reach of this new technology. What began as a Tactical innovation now it is transforming the way They fight the battles: Ukrainian and Russian operators can introduce drones by windows and doors to locate and destroy hidden vehicles, overcoming the limitations of conventional drones that They depend on signals of radio vulnerable to electronic blocking.

Forgotten concept evolution. Like almost everything in war, the idea is not new at all: already in the 2000s, Darpa had conceived Guided drones by fiber optic cable to avoid electronic interference. But it was not until the war in Ukraine when that concept found real application. Russia was the first in deploy fiber drones On a little more than a year ago, and quickly went to a broader production.

Ukraine, with the support of international volunteers Like former Marine American Troy Smothers, It has accelerated: 15 local companies already manufacture these drones (although at a distance from Russian machinery). The Minister of Digital Transformation, Mykhailo Fedorov, has led the effort, promoting collaboration between private initiative and defense capabilities. Unlike traditional drones, which can lose communication if they fly low or after a hill, fiber maintains an uninterrupted connection along tens of kilometers, and do so without issuing signals that can be detected by the enemy.

Lethal tactics. The first fiber drones barely exceeded 3 kilometers, but today missions have been documented up to 41 kilometers. In fact, A Russian video It even shows a 50 km coil that weighs less than 4 kilos, compatible with larger models. Thanks to the low energy consumption of cable connection, some drones can land and stay In ambushed mode For long periods, ready to activate When passing from an objective.

Russia has also shown prototypes of small land robots that work as mobile platforms To launch fiber drones, expanding its autonomy and coordinated attack capacity. The concept of a “cobweb operation”, with multiple drones connected and launched from unmanned vehicles, is dangerously approaching to become reality.

How to stop the impossible. We counted a few days ago that Ukrainian troops have tried everything, even scissors. But current defensive measures are ineffective to the new threat. Physical networks can stop some drones, but a slit to allow their entry, such as They demonstrate videos Where Ukrainian drones go through Russian meshes without resistance. In addition, tracking the cable to its operator has become impracticable to the entangled landscape of abandoned fibers.

Cutting the cable is also A theoretical option more than practical: there is A video which shows a quadcoptera achieving such a feat, but doing so requires an extremely complicated precision and synchronization combination. Drones equipped with shotguns They have shown efficiency in demolishing other drones, but they are Little useful Given the speed and discretion of fiber FPV. Some Ukrainian units, Like the Birds of MasharThey have managed to intercept Russian devices with the help of tactical radars, but their reach, again, is limited and not scalable.

No clear rules. The proliferation of fiber optic drones It is accelerating on both sides, and the defenses still They do not adapt to the rhythm of its deployment. Thus, the battles of the immediate future could include fighting between autonomous drones in the air, where human reaction time is no longer enough.

Hence, the need to develop automatic interceptors capable of detecting and neutralizing these real -time drones has become urgent. The problem? That the development of countermeasures goes behind offensive innovation, and no one can predict how long this era of tactical supremacy based on invisible cables will last, nor what will be the trigger that ends.

Image | 12th Brigade Azov

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