Ukrainian soldiers armed with scissors say they’ll cut any fiber-optic drone cable they see — even if it’s their own.

• Ukrainian soldiers are cutting the wires of any fiber optic drones they find.

• Some carry scissors so they can be ready when found. They also use knives and their bare hands.

• The danger posed by these drones is that they don’t even stop to consider who they are.

Ukrainian soldiers are cutting any fiber optic drone cables they come across, regardless of which side they are on. They use scissors, knives, even their bare hands.

The military says it doesn’t matter if the drone is Ukrainian or Russian. If they’re not sure, they just assume it’s hostile.

Controlled by long, thin cables, these unwieldy drones have flooded the battlefield as a countermeasure to electronic warfare that often disables radio-frequency drones.

As these drones proliferate, the result is jungles and ditches littered with discarded and active cables.

Dimko Zhluktenko, an analyst with Ukraine Unmanned Systems ForceHe said he always carries a pair of scissors to “cut every optic fiber we see.”

He said his unit “really stopped considering them as friend or foe. We think they’re all enemy drones.”

In a YouTube video about the gear he carries, Zhluktenko said the scissors became so essential that when his unit began working in areas full of fiber-optic cables, each team member was required to carry a pair. He said he bought retractors for his team so no one would lose them.

A Ukrainian soldier who spoke to Business Insider on condition of anonymity said troops can often break the thin wires with their bare hands; That’s often not necessary, though. Soldiers in his unit already carry scissors for medical purposes. Many also have knives.

He said there can be so many cables on the battlefield that “you don’t know if it’s a new thread or if it’s an old one that’s been lying around for a long time.” So his unit smashes any they find as often as possible.

Not just fiber optic cable

Other similar behaviors have been observed on the battlefield.

Sometimes there are so many drones in the sky that soldiers looking up from the ground can’t even begin to tell which are friendly and which are hostile. In such cases, soldiers can be ordered to shoot down any drones they see.

Soldiers in charge of electronic warfare systems sometimes panic and jam everything in the air when they can’t distinguish drones, Zhluktenko previously told Business Insider.

Zhluktenko told Business Insider that cutting fiber-optic cables was not something he often had to do, as his unit was usually operating in front-line combat areas that lacked fiber-optic drones. He described it as something he encountered “occasionally”.

Soldiers in Ukraine’s 15th Mobile Border Detachment “Steel Border” previously said in a video for Ukraine’s State Border Service that using scissors is a reliable way to disable Russian drones. The Russian army is said to have done the same.

If the cable is intact on an active and operational drone, the only other way to stop it is to physically shoot it (the military says a shotgun works best); That requires a mix of skill and luck, though.

Fiber-optic drones are a relatively new feature in this war that has not been fielded at this level before. These drones can be disabled with simple tools – scissors, knives, bare hands – underscoring a broader pattern in Ukraine: sophisticated systems are often countered with low-tech fixes.

In many cases, some of the most effective counters to advanced technology have been outdated or improvised combat equipment—from shotguns used against small drones to traps used to repel airstrikes on vehicles and positions. Drones are also inexpensive inventions designed to meet more expensive equipment and wartime demands.

Read the original article on Business Insider