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Russia has begun fitting fuel depots with a purpose-built anti-drone shield called "Web," developed by Rostec subsidiary RT-Project Technologies in partnership with Standard-Elektrik.
— Comandante🎖️ (@commandante_) September 3, 2026
The modular metal system is designed to protect oil storage facilities, electrical… pic.twitter.com/oEmP8T7MP4
httphttps://x.com/commandante_/status/2095476400807444622?s=20
https://x.com/commandante_/status/2095476400807444622?s=20
It's extremely easy to adapt conventional cruise missiles (the ones flying at high subsonic speed with heavier than 100 kg warheads) to still hit the right location and pierce through this passive defence.
WW2 aircraft had devices to deflect and cut (barrage balloon tether cables.
German Submarines had cable cutters in WWI already and satisfaction was such that they reappeared in WW2.
A cruise missile might lose its folding wings in a new, but it could be arranged that they get sacrificed on the last couple metres. The tail fins can be built resistant to netting. The frontal area of fuselage and engine/air inlet is small enough.
Overall, I'm, sure that you cannot protect an oil refinery against Flamingo, Tomahawk or Kalibr with scaffolding and netting. It's a defensive iteration that's soon to be rendered useless by the next offensive iteration.
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The good thing is that we in Europe actually don't need this. IRIS-T SL(M), 76 mm naval gun turrets & 20 to 35 mm autocannons are extremely (cost-)effective against subsonic cruise missiles. You don't even really need IRIS-T SL(M) for point defence if the threat munitions are slow (Kalibr at about M 0.8 is NOT slow).
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| Chinese naval 76 mm gun on 6x6 |
So we have the technology (weapons, munitions and sensors), but it's of no use if we don't build, pay for it and install it.
Russia may do so until 2030, after the iterative cycles in the ongoing war reach the approximate the state of the technology. They have access to the radar tech, naval gun mount tech, anti-air autocannon tech and missile tech needed for a proper defence. They were just not able to install it in the necessary quantities yet (and Pantsir appears to be very flawed).
This may lead to Russia having having non-nuclear blackmail potential against us by the early 2030's. They might threaten destruction of much of our large commercial structures (which includes logistics centres, apparently) with us being unable to threaten a reply in kind due to increased Russian resilience.
Now full stop.
I do NOT advocate we secure all our industries with point defences!
The old considerations regarding defending at the border or frontline rather than point defences in the rear still apply. The potential of attacks from the sea and clandestine attacks complicate the matter, but I say a defence of the troops at the front + a strategic air defence line behind the front (continued over interrupting coastal waters) plus point defences (preferably 76 mm or cheap SAMs) for the about 200 most critical locations in the EU (most oil refineries, capitals, DNS servers, the most important transformer stations, some satellite control sites, some rail bridges and so on) makes sense to me. Moreover, some extremely critical infrastructure (such as electrical grid coordination) can be moved to underground bunkers.
Said defence line posited at a fairly safe distance behind the front line (150+ km behind) could combine AEW, ground-based radars (preferably on high rise buildings and masts), high end fighters (priority on intercepting high end cruise missiles), auxiliary fighters, cheap (old) combat aircraft and the point defences of capitals close to the threat border.
The regular Russian air force shouldn't be much of an issue to European NATO. Maybe temporarily to Turkey, maybe in first 12 hours, maybe far out over the sea, but other than that they stand no chance ONCE we stocked enough air combat missiles (the Meteor, AMRAAM and MICA stocks are at ridiculous levels).
Then the remaining air defence issue for European NATO would be the (more expensive) ballistic missiles, particularly if they get the navigation technology that's jamming resistant or immune. American style hard-kill defences would be excessively expensive, so I suppose the best counter to such ballistic missiles would be resilience. Take the punches and keep going. That's what Ukraine does because it has no other option than defeat.
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