Russia's Shadow Fleet Adds Nets, Tires to Fend Off Ukrainian Drones

Tankers hauling sanctioned Russian oil are being outfitted with nets and rubber tires as improvised armor against drone strikes, The Wall Street Journal reported, as Ukraine intensifies efforts to choke off the exports that help finance Moscow's war effort.

The makeshift defenses mark a low-tech response to a high-stakes problem: oil revenue remains one of the Kremlin's largest sources of war financing, and Kyiv has made disrupting that trade a central part of its strategy, according to the Journal.

What Defenses Are Shadow Fleet Tankers Adding?

According to the Journal's reporting, crews and operators are turning to low-cost, readily available materials rather than military-grade countermeasures. Nets strung around vulnerable sections of a vessel are intended to snag or deflect incoming drones before they strike, while rubber tires lashed to hulls and superstructures are meant to absorb the force of an impact that does get through. Neither approach offers the protection of purpose-built naval defenses, but they are cheap, fast to install, and do not require taking a tanker out of service for a lengthy retrofit.

The improvisation underscores how exposed these vessels are. Commercial tankers are not designed to withstand attack, and the fleet moving Russian crude has little incentive — or ability, given sanctions — to seek sophisticated military-grade armor plating or electronic countermeasures of the kind used by warships.

Oil exports help pay for Moscow's war effort, and Ukraine is trying to hit them hard.

What Is Russia's Shadow Fleet?

The term refers to the aging tankers and other vessels that move Russian oil outside the formal insurance, flagging, and shipping arrangements used before sanctions were imposed over the invasion of Ukraine. These ships allow Moscow to keep exporting crude even as Western governments and allies restrict access to mainstream shipping, insurance, and financing markets. The Journal's report ties the drone-armor retrofits directly to this fleet, describing them as a response specific to vessels now operating under greater threat of attack.

Why Is Ukraine Targeting Oil Exports?

The logic is straightforward: oil sales are a major funding stream for Russia's war effort, and slowing that revenue is a way to pressure the Kremlin without engaging Russian military assets directly, the Journal reported. By going after the tankers themselves — rather than only the oil fields, refineries, or financial institutions involved — Kyiv is attacking a point in the supply chain where ships are often older, less defended, and harder for Moscow to quickly replace.

That strategy has made shadow fleet vessels a recurring target, prompting operators to look for whatever protection they can improvise on short notice and limited budgets.

How Serious Is the Drone Threat to Tankers?

The fact that operators are resorting to nets and tires rather than more robust defenses signals how acute the threat has become, and how limited the options are for ships operating outside standard commercial insurance and support networks. A tanker that cannot access conventional maritime insurers or Western shipyards for upgrades is largely left to whatever materials crews can source and attach themselves. The Journal's account suggests these retrofits are now common enough across the fleet to be treated as a standard precaution rather than an isolated case.

What Happens Next?

Neither Russian officials nor shipping operators were quoted in the available reporting addressing the drone-armor retrofits directly, and it remains unclear how effective nets and tires are in practice against modern drone strikes. What is established, per the Journal, is the underlying dynamic: Russia's reliance on oil exports to fund its military operations, and Ukraine's continued focus on disrupting the fleet that carries that oil to market. As long as that contest continues, shipping operators are likely to keep relying on whatever low-cost defenses they can muster rather than wait for more permanent solutions.

The Journal's full account, including additional detail on the vessels and the broader shadow fleet, is available at the original story.