Guy Faulconbridge

LONDON, (Reuters) – Russia’s new laser weapon system was showcased Wednesday by Russia. This included a mobile laser gun that President Vladimir Putin first unveiled in 2018. Moscow claimed it can blind satellites orbiting the earth and eliminate drones.

Putin presented a variety of new weapons in 2018, including a new intercontinental bombistic missile, small nuclear warheads which could attach to cruise missiles and underwater nuclear drones.

We don’t know much about the exact function of Peresvet, named after an Orthodox medieval warrior monk Alexander Peresvet, who died in mortal combat. Putin did not provide any details in 2018, and laser information is still secret.

Yury Borisov was the deputy prime Minister in charge of military developments and stated that Peresvet is already widely used. It could also blind satellites as high as 1,500km above Earth.

A Tuesday test he claimed had destroyed a drone at 5 km in five seconds. Reuters couldn’t confirm independently the results.

Borisov explained that the missile is mass-supplied already to troops and the satellite reconnaissance systems can be blinded by a potential enemy orbiting at up to 1,500km. It also disables them during flight because of the laser radiation.

Borisov stated that “But that’s not of today or in some ways yesterday: Our physicists now have, practically mass-produced laser systems that are stronger by an order to inflict heat destruction on different apparatus.”

Borisov’s comments indicate that Russia made substantial progress with Peresvet and other unannounced successors. This trend is of great interest to nuclear power countries like the United States or China.

According to his remarks, Russia may blind the satellites as well as an array of systems that the United States uses for monitoring Russia’s intercontinental bombistic missiles (or drones) used to attack artillery posts in the Ukraine conflict.

Borisov claimed he was returning from Sarov (a town closed in the Nizhny Novgorod area that used to be called Arzamas-16, because of its secrecy) which is now a center for Russia’s research into nuclear weapons.

Borisov claimed that so-called weapon systems, based on “new physical principles”, are now in the works.

Borisov stated that this weapon is an electromagnetic weapon and a laser weapon. “This isn’t some kind of crazy idea. It is the truth.”