Kyiv ¨C Woven from fiber-optic cable and grass, a small bird¡¯s nest found near the front line of the war in Ukraine shows how the more than 4-year-old conflict is reshaping the natural environment, researchers say.

Areas ?along the 1,200-kilometer?front line are covered with ultrathin fiber-optic cables, which are used ?by Ukrainian and ?Russian troops to guide aerial attack drones to make them impervious ?to electronic jamming.

The cables, which can stretch for 20 km, lie tangled in trees and scattered across fields and on the rooftops of towns in Ukraine¡¯s frontline regions, glistening in ?the sunlight like giant spider webs.

Birds have begun repurposing the discarded cables to weave their nests, says Yana Hrynko, ?a senior researcher at Kyiv¡¯s War Museum, cautiously examining two delicate nests the armed forces sent to the museum from the front line.

¡°Objects such ?as bird nests with fragments of ?optic fiber?demonstrate the change in the nature of war,¡± said Hrynko.

Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 with tanks, armored vehicles and artillery. ?Trying to counter ?Russia¡¯s advantage in such conventional equipment, Ukraine has poured resources into developing ?aerial drones. Drones now dominate the battlefield.

Hrynko said researchers did not know ?which birds ?made the nests nor how they had gathered the long cables.

¡°The first nest mainly contains dry grass and fiber-optic cable. And it¡¯s pretty tightly twisted,¡± she said.

Several Ukrainian service members?in the frontline regions of Donetsk, Kharkiv ?and Zaporizhzhia who had found such nests and posted their pictures and videos online were spoken to.

One of the two nests will remain in Kyiv as a part of the War Museum¡¯s war collection, and the other will be sent for study in the Netherlands and later returned, researchers said.

Auke-Florian Hiemstra, a ?33-year-old ?biologist based in the Dutch city of Leiden who specializes in ?artificial nest materials, said Ukraine had rich avian biodiversity and there were many species that could have ?built the nests.

¡°We¡¯re going to look for DNA traces still in a nest to determine who actually made the nest,¡± she said. ¡°I have never seen nests like this before ¡ª and I have seen many, many bird nests.¡±

The impact of the fiber-optic on birds ?could be mixed, Hiemstra said. It could cause harm as the birds could become entangled in it, but it could also benefit them by helping them make a strong nest. ¡°And by documenting this nest, we¡¯re also documenting the impact of war on nature in Ukraine,¡± Hiemstra said.?