Ukrainian troops are now fishing for Russian drones – with a fishing rod attached to their own drones.
In footage released by Ukraine’s 46th Separate Airmobile Podilskaya Brigade on Sunday, the unit could be seen intercepting at least two Russian drones – one fixed-wing and one quadcopter – using a fishing rod attached to their own drones.
Filmed through the drone’s first-person view (FPV) camera, the footage shows a fishing rod mounted on the drone, with a dangling cord that resembles a paracord rather than a standard nylon line. The Ukrainian drone then flies above its Russian target, the cord tangling with it and apparently causing it to crash.
“We would like to separately note the new capture of enemy drones in the air and the defeat of enemy armored vehicles,” the brigade wrote in its update accompanying the video.
The drone intercept footage was preceded by numerous clips showing the brigade’s FPV drones hitting Russian troops and equipment, including quad bikes and troops in concealment in the white, wintry Ukrainian countryside.
As drones proliferated on the Ukrainian battlefield, both Ukraine and Russia have come up with ways to counter the threat.
Earlier in the war, both sides relied on electronic warfare (EW) systems to either jam or spoof the drones’ electronics and communication systems. However, with the arrival of fiber-optic drones that are nearly immune to jamming and improved counter-EW measures, physically intercepting them became more widespread.
On the tactical level, the interceptor drones are roughly divided into expendable and reusable types. The former often functions by ramming itself into the threat, exploding and destroying in the process, whereas the latter often works by shooting down the threats.
3DTech, a Ukrainian manufacturer, experimented with a six-barreled recoilless shotgun put underneath a regular FPV quadcopter, while another manufacturer, Besomar, fitted their fixed-wing models with shotgun barrels.
Technari, an Odesa-based company, experimented with a jet-powered fixed-wing drone, also using shotguns to take down the drones.
In November 2025, Kyiv and London agreed to begin licensed production – estimated at 2,000 units per month for delivery – of the OCTOPUS interceptor drone at British industrial facilities, with the drones likely designed to engage larger, strategic-level drones such as the Iranian Shahed-type drones.