Moscow claimed it destroyed a UAV with a laser, but Kyiv ridiculed the claim as propaganda.
While Russia claims to have used laser weapons on the battlefield in Ukraine, the United States said it did not see any evidence of this and Ukraine ridiculed the claim as propaganda.
But what exactly are laser weapons and how effective can they be in combat?
Russia’s deputy prime minister for military development, Yuri Borisov, told state television that a laser prototype called Zadira was used in Ukraine, and that it burned a Ukrainian drone in five seconds at a distance of 5 km.
It is attached to an older laser system called Peresvet, named after a medieval orthodox warrior monk, which can be used to confuse satellites orbiting above Earth and prevent them from gathering information.
“If Peresvet blinds, then a new generation of laser weapons leads to the physical destruction of the target – thermal destruction, it burns,” Borisov said. Said.
But a US Department of Defense official said he saw “nothing to support reports of laser use” in Ukraine.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, Russia’s claim, Nazi Germany’s World War II. He mocked it by comparing it to the so-called “miracle weapons” he claimed to have developed during World War II.
“As it became clear that they had no chance in combat, there was more and more propaganda about an incredible weapon that would be powerful enough to warrant a comeback,” he said in a video speech.
“And we see that, in the third month of a full-scale war, Russia is trying to find its ‘miracle weapon’… all this clearly indicates a complete failure of the mission.”
What laser guns can and cannot do
Little is known about the Zadira laser system, but in 2017 Russian media claimed that it helped develop it as part of the state nuclear agency Rosatom’s program to create weapons based on new physics principles.
However, there is at least one country that has developed a laser weapon. Last month, Israel released a video showing a laser system that shoots down rockets and drones.
Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett said it can shoot down drones, mortars and rockets for up to $3.50 per shot.
“It may sound like science fiction, but it’s real,” he said.
However, missile defense expert Uzi Rubin from the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security (JISS) believes that laser weapons technology will not change the balance of power on the battlefield in Ukraine.
“Zelensky is right – it’s not a miracle weapon,” he tells the BBC.
“It took a few seconds to shoot down the UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) known as the drone. There are much better ways to do this, using a Stinger or any anti-aircraft missile would be cheaper, faster and more efficient. It would have more reach.”
Lasers work by sending out a beam of infrared light that heats its target until it burns.
Rubin states that even the power of advanced laser weapons is too weak to make a significant difference on the battlefield, and points out that the “lethal rate” of these weapons is low.
“Not similar Star wars, where they point a laser gun at the bad guys, quickly press a button, and the bad guy explodes. In reality, it is more like a microwave oven. If you want to boil a glass of water, it takes some time. Laser is the same. You have to target it and wait until it heats up and destroys it,” he explains.
Rubin adds that the laser can only focus on one target at a time, while missile defense systems can destroy multiple targets at the same time.
Also, since lasers do not work in rain or snow and cannot pass clouds, they become ineffective in bad weather conditions.
But Israel’s “Iron Beam” has a logic, he says, but mostly as a way to save money. Expensive Iron Dome interceptor missiles are designed to protect major cities from incoming missiles rather than mortars or drones.
“Missile warfare is a war of resources. It’s cheaper to build rockets than to defend against them. So anything you can do to reduce defense costs is beneficial,” he explains.
“Energy weapons could be useful in cutting costs – but they won’t revolutionize.”
Retired Australian Army Brigadier General Mick Ryan told the Washington Post that Russia could use battlefield lasers to blind Ukrainian soldiers, but this is prohibited under a 1995 protocol annexed to the UN that bans weapons that cause excessive injury or have indiscriminate effect. Although.
Russia, the USA and the UK are among the countries that signed the protocol.
History of ‘Miracle Weapons’
Zelensky’s reference to “miracle weapons” — Wunderwaffen – it goes back to the German Nazi propaganda that was spread at a time when the war was going badly for them.
The Ministry of Propaganda, headed by Joseph Goebbels, sought to raise the morale of the population and convince the Germans of victory, implying that new special weapons were coming that would definitively “turn” the war in their favour.
According to Michael Neufeld, curator of the Smithsonian Museum in Washington, when the Nazis began firing V-1 flying bombs on Britain, the Nazi propaganda machine began saying that this would force the country to abandon the war. .
“The propaganda said: Let’s take revenge and turn it around. I’m not surprised that Zelensky referred to this episode of WWII,” he told the BBC.
It was disappointing when that didn’t happen—but the idea that these new weapons could be decisive persists to this day, says Neufeld, who has spent his career fighting it.
However, he cautions against drawing too direct parallels with Russia’s announcement of its laser weapon, saying that Moscow always launches its arsenal with reference to nuclear and hypersonic weapons.
“Since the war went badly, it may be premature to see it as a reaction event,” he says.
“At the beginning of the war they assumed that talk of these new weapons would frighten Ukraine and force it to give up. Now they may turn around and say they are still superior.”
source: Noticias
