Satellite images show Russia has added anti-drone netting to more than half a dozen submarines at the Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base on the Kamchatka Peninsula, a war zone-related defense shift far from Ukraine. The new coverings were visible in images collected on Tuesday, after May imagery showed only two submarines with netting.
Rybachiy Nuclear Submarine Base
The change affects a site that serves as the central hub for the Russian Navy's Pacific Fleet and hosts nuclear-powered ballistic-missile and attack submarines. The base lies more than 4,500 miles east of Ukraine, yet the imagery shows Russia extending submarine protection to a Pacific facility as if the drone threat reaches that far.
Vantor's June imagery also showed at least three submarines with counter-drone cages at the Novorossiysk naval base in southwestern Krasnodar Krai. That base is the homeport for the Black Sea Fleet and has been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drone attacks.
Novorossiysk naval base
Britain's defense ministry said the cages were "applied as a preventive measure in response to Ukraine's increased ability to strike targets further from the front line." Russia has increasingly turned to anti-drone cages and netting to protect energy facilities, weapons production buildings, and submarines, while Russia tried to defend Novorossiysk by placing large barriers in the water. Anti-drone cages are designed primarily to counter aerial attacks, not sea drones.
Ukraine has demonstrated that it can strike targets over 1,000 miles inside Russian territory, and in June 2025 it carried out Operation Spiderweb with drones swarming Russian air bases in the Arctic, Siberia, and near China's northeastern border. Against that backdrop, the spread of netting at Rybachiy and cages at Novorossiysk points to a wider Russian effort to harden assets in both the Pacific Ocean and the Black Sea.
Russia's defense ministry
Russia's defense ministry and its US embassy did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the added defenses. Whether the added anti-drone netting at Rybachiy was prompted by a specific intelligence warning or by a broader defensive doctrine is not answered, and the next step will be whether Russia expands the same protection to more submarines at other naval sites.
