Russia successfully tests new laser weapon that can ‘blind’ satellites and destroy drones from three miles away
- The ‘Peresvet’ weapon is now being successfully tested according to Russia
- The secretive project has been lauded by Russian deputy PM Yury Borisov
- The system is said to be able to blind satellites up to 1,500km (932 miles) up
Russia has successfully tested new laser weapons which can blind satellites and destroy drones, according to its deputy prime minister.
Yury Borisov, the man in charge of military development in Putin’s government, said that the Peresvet system was already being deployed, and had been tested on Tuesday – burning up a drone 5km (3 miles) away.
The system is said by Russia to be able to blind satellites up to 1,500km (932 miles) above Earth.
Yury Borisov said that the Peresvet system was already being deployed, and had been tested
The new generation of weapons comes as Putin’s war machine falters in Ukraine with some estimates saying that the dictator has lost up to a third of Russia’s troops since the February 24 invasion.
Putin in 2018 unveiled an array of new weapons including a new intercontinental ballistic missile, a small nuclear warhead that could be attached to cruise missiles, underwater nuclear drones, a supersonic weapon and a laser weapon.
Little is known about what exactly the laser weapon, named Peresvet after a medieval Orthodox warrior monk Alexander Peresvet who perished in mortal combat, does.
Putin gave few specifics in 2018 and the granular details are secret.
Borisov said today: ‘It is already being mass-supplied to the (missile) troops, and it can blind all satellite reconnaissance systems of a likely enemy in orbits of up to 1,500 km, disabling them during flight due to the use of laser radiation,’ Borisov said.
‘But that, let’s say, is of today, or even in some ways of yesterday: our physicists have now created, and practically mass-produced, laser systems which are more powerful by an order of magnitude that can inflict thermal destruction on various apparatus’.
Borisov’s remarks indicate that Russia has made significant progress with Peresvet, and other yet to be unannounced successors, a trend of considerable interest to other nuclear powers such as the United States and China.
The new generation of weapons comes as Putin’s war machine falters in the Ukraine conflict
Borisov’s remarks indicate Russia could blind the satellites and an array of other systems which the United States uses to monitor Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles
His remarks indicate Russia could blind the satellites and an array of other systems which the United States uses to monitor Russia’s intercontinental ballistic missiles – or the drones used to target artillery positions in the Ukraine war.
Borisov said he had just returned from Sarov, a closed town in the Nizhny Novgorod region once known as Arzamas-16 because it was so secret, which is a centre of Russia’s nuclear weapons research.
‘Today, so called weapons systems based on new physical principles are on the way.
‘This is primarily a laser weapon, an electromagnetic wideband weapon that will replace (conventional weapons) in the next decade – this is not some sort of exotic idea; it is the reality’.
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