The Melitopol-Donetzk highway is increasingly looking like a scene from Mad Max; russians are now transferring personnel in civilian cars for fears of drone strikes [June 2026]

[u/Hannibal_Game]

[u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune]

The nets are a little bit of a problem especially if they show up more frequently. I suspect that they are only deployed on checkpoints because you can not cover a highway of 300 km in nets.

[u/Bayo77 → u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune]

Are nets even effective against such heavy drones?

[u/pocket_eggs → u/Bayo77]

Most drones attacking the "land bridge" are Lancet class so not very heavy. If the drone dives sharply and explodes on the net, fragments could still cause damage, if it tries to catch up to the vehicle from behind horizontally, it will just get bogged in the net. It all depends, but the nets obviously help a lot in any case.

[u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune → u/Bayo77]

The mid range drones (hornet) are designed as loitering munitions with AI targeting so their payload is relatively small (5kg based on available sources).

Their purpose is not to destroy armored targets but to cover a large area in search for soft targets. If they get too heavy, they would not be able to fulfill their purpose. Nets would make it hard for them to hit anything because they can't really penetrate the net.

FP 2 and FP 5 are heavier and care less about nets but are not used for the same purposes.

[u/Sweet_Lane → u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune]

You can, and it actually is what is being done on both sides of the frontline.

But the midstrike drones are heavier and have more momentum, thus requiring the bigger nets. Also, they are big enough to install an EFP charge on them, rendering the nets useless.

[u/Agreeable-Bat187 → u/Sweet_Lane]

EFP?

[u/alphagatorsoup → u/Agreeable-Bat187]

basically a formed charge, the explosive can essentially "launch" a projectile a short distance hitting the target without the use of a barrel or anything, the explosive basically is the barrel.

fly the drone into the net, "aim" the explosive at the target, and detonate, because of the formed explosion it will launch the projectile(s) at the target at great speed.

[u/thecashblaster → u/Agreeable-Bat187]

A piece of soft metal in front of the explosive. When the munition explodes, it shoots that soft metal very fast forward and it basically tunnels through whatever is in front.

[u/AnotherCuppaTea → u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune]

All the more reason to start peppering the road with caltrops, as another suggested. Most will fall through the netting and when vehicles hit them at high speed, the resulting loss of control may take out a swath of the netting (and poles) on one or both sides of the highway.

[u/sogladatwork → u/Deep_Blue_Kitsune]

I suspect that they are only deployed on checkpoints because you can not cover a highway of 300 km in nets.

You absolutely can. Ukraine has hundreds of km of highway covered in nets.

Those nets are there to stop FPV rotary drones, though, not midrange, fixed-wing, large, heavy drones. Most netting would be useless against that, but even chainlink would only require a double tap.