Ukraine’s military has reportedly deployed rotating barbed-wire barriers designed to counter Russian fiber-optic-guided drones operating beyond the front line, Militarnyi reported, citing a Russian military blogger.

Footage posted by Russian blogger Ramzai, showed a 150-meter fence powered by a small battery and controller.

A Ukrainian soldier in the video explained that the wire rotates once per minute with short pauses, running up to 12 hours a day. The movement is designed to snag and sever the thin fiber-optic cables that these drones trail along the ground.

“The need for manual installation of this design will not allow blocking the front lines, but it can solve another important problem – drone strikes in the rear of Ukrainian positions and ambushes on logistics routes,” Militarnyi notes. 

Fiber-optic drones, remotely operated unmanned aerial vehicles connected to their controllers by a spool of fiber-optic cable rather than radio signals, are harder to detect than radio-guided drones since they do not emit radio frequencies that can be intercepted or jammed by electronic warfare systems.

Capable of operating deep behind the front line, these drones pose a threat to supply convoys, troop rotations, and rear positions that would normally be safe from short-range FPV attacks. Both Russia and Ukraine are now effectively using them to strike targets as far as 40 kilometers behind enemy lines.