STEVE INSKEEP, HOST:
Let's go to the war in Ukraine, where people are also turning to low-tech tools to defeat modern weapons. One of the first signs of Russia's slowly advancing front line in eastern Ukraine is an increase in small drones that cannot be jammed because they're controlled through a physical fiber-optic cable. Russia has been using those drones to terrorize people living in towns near the front, and people have a response, as NPR's Eleanor Beardsley has seen.
ELEANOR BEARDSLEY, BYLINE: Oh, my God. This is incredible. We're driving into the town of Izium on the main road, and it's completely covered in nets. White nets go over the road and down the two sides, supported on wooden poles. We're under a canopy of white nets.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Speaking Ukrainian).
BEARDSLEY: Our first stop on this icy, freezing day - a coffee shop on the town's main street.
ANDRIY: It's strange to see them in major town, especially when you live here for so long. It's a little bit sad.
BEARDSLEY: That's Andriy (ph), who's stationed here with the Ukrainian military. He's not allowed to give his last name. He says the nets stop the drones, which send live video feeds to their pilots as they home in on a target, because their propellers get tangled in them.
Victoria Semerei (ph) is lounging in a chair, reading a book. The fashion rep from Kyiv is here to spend a couple days with her husband, who's on leave from the front. Last year, they met up in a nearby city that's now become too dangerous.
VICTORIA SEMEREI: Just at a click, everything changed. And now we see all these nets, and we all understand that it's a sign of something - that the drones can reach any part of the city.
BEARDSLEY: Izium is famed for its charming 19th-century buildings, many now lying in rubble or pockmarked with shell holes. The town was occupied for six months by Russian forces during the first year of the war.
(SOUNDBITE OF COFFEE MACHINE DRONING)
BEARDSLEY: Nineteen-year-old Sophia Verbytska (ph) is making coffees to serve customers in this cafe. She grew up in Izium. She says it was a nice place before the Russians invaded.
SOPHIA VERBYTSKA: (Through interpreter) These nets scare us because before, there were no nets. And since they appeared, local people feel uncomfortable here because it means that the front line is approaching to the city.
(SOUNDBITE OF TRAFFIC)
BEARDSLEY: Outside, cars drive along under a long tunnel of netting as people go about their everyday lives. Twenty-year-old Maxime Yevsiukov (ph) is making his way up the icy sidewalk under the drone nets. He says he doesn't mind the nets because they're for our own good. He remembers the day the Russians arrived.
MAXIME YEVSIUKOV: (Through interpreter) I heard shooting. And when I came out in the street, there were Russian military vehicles and soldiers waving Russian flags.
BEARDSLEY: He says the Russians would take you to the basement and simply kill you if you spoke in Ukrainian or said something wrong. There's a mass grave right outside town. Yevsiukov says Ukraine cannot give up any territory it has held on to. "We cannot leave people to the Russians," he says.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Because of security reasons.
BEARDSLEY: Yeah.
(SOUNDBITE OF CAR DOOR SHUTTING)
BEARDSLEY: At an undisclosed location outside of town, we meet Dr. Oleksiy Mykoliuk, who treats soldiers from the front line. He's seen the damage done by drones and says Izium is taking a necessary step.
OLEKSIY MYKOLIUK: We didn't have a lot of drones right now, but we don't know how much drones we're going to get in, like, two weeks. Front line is coming every day. And, yeah, it can save lives.
BEARDSLEY: Ukraine's government has announced a plan to install some 2,500 miles of drone nets on front-line roads by the end of 2026 - a sign of just how much drones are changing the way we fight wars.
Eleanor Beardsley, NPR News, Izium, Ukraine. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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