A Brief History of (Alleged) Military Laser Weapon Kills
Which country pulled off the first use of a military laser weapon in combat? Depends on who you ask.
The age of laser warfare is officially here.
On May 28, the Israeli Ministry of Defense released what appears to be the first publicly confirmed video of a high-energy laser weapon system downing hostile drones in combat, a historic milestone in the decades-long development of directed energy weapons.
Israel’s documented drone intercepts close the door on one of the longest-running questions in military tech: which country would be first to prove a laser weapon could deliver a hard kill in actual combat?
The answer is now clear. But Israel’s breakthrough also casts new light on a shadowy list of previous claims. Over the past few years, a growing roster of countries — the United States, Russia, China, Ukraine, India, Turkey, and Japan — have all publicized new laser weapon systems, many of them showcased blasting drones out of the sky in tightly edited test footage. In some cases, officials have hinted at operational use; in others, unverified reports have circulated of battlefield kills.
To that end, here’s a brief (and sometimes blurry) history of the alleged laser kills that paved the way to Israel’s very real one.
🇺🇸 United States vs 🇮🇷 Iran-backed Militants
In April 2024, I reported for Military.com that the Army had officially deployed a pair of 20 kilowatt Palletized-High Energy Laser (P-HEL) weapons, based on the BlueHalo’s LOCUST Weapon System, to the Middle East to counter the Iran-backed militants who have increasingly menaced US troops deployed there with low-cost weaponized drones. While neither the Army or BlueHalo would confirm on the record that the P-HEL has achieved a kill, Forbes would eventually get a vague confirmation out of Army acquisition boss Doug Bush, who stated that the system had proven “highly effective against certain threats.”
Although the Army walked that claim back after the fact, Bush’s comments are the closest official confirmation yet that a US military laser has achieved a kill downrange.
🇷🇺 Russia vs 🇺🇦 Ukraine
Shortly after the Russian military invaded Ukraine in February 2022, Moscow claimed that it had successfully deployed its new “Zadira” laser weapon system to counter Ukrainian drones. But despite big claims from Russian President Vladimir Putin and his cronies, the US Defense Department stated that it had seen no indication that the Russian military had actually deployed laser weapons as part of its invasion. Indeed, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky mocked Putin’s laser claims as a desperate grasp at a quick victory.
“In the propaganda of Nazi Germany there was such a term ‘wunderwaffe,’ [or] wonder weapon,” Zelensky said at the time. “The clearer it became they had no chance in the war, the more propaganda there was about the wonder weapon, which would be so powerful that it would provide a turning point in the war … And here we see that in the third month of a full-scale war, Russia is trying to find its ‘wunderwaffe,’ allegedly laser.”
🇺🇦 Ukraine vs 🇷🇺 Russia
Despite its status as one of the newest entrants into the military laser weapons club, the Ukrainian military claims it’s already putting its newfound directed energy capabilities to good use. Shortly after revealing the existence of its “Tryzub” (or “Trident”) laser weapon in December 2024, the head of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces stated in February that the system was already operationally deployed as part of the country’s response to Russia’s ongoing invasion.
Unfortunately, no evidence currently exists to support the Ukrainian military’s claim. Indeed, footage circulating on social media purportedly showing the Tryzub downing a quadcopter actually show the US Marine Corps training with its now-defunct Compact Laser Weapons System (CLaWS) in the Middle East back in 2021.
🇷🇺 Russia vs 🇮🇱 Israel
In 2020, several defense media outlets reported that the Russian military had successfully tested its “Peresvet” laser weapon system in Syria, shooting down an Israeli drone carrying out reconnaissance following an Israeli airstrike on Syrian regime positions in the Golan Heights.
While the Israeli military threw cold water on the reports, Moscow had essentially used Syria as a proving ground for next-generation weaponry during the height of the country’s civil war, making the deployment of laser systems for testing there not outside the realm of possibility. Indeed, then-Russian Minister of Defense Sergei Shoygu confirmed to TASS in 2021 that the Peresvet was one of several technologies tested in the country. At the same time, Shoygu confirmed testing but not a kill — a striking omission given the Russian MoD’s propensity to hype up its defense tech vaporware.
🇮🇳 India vs 🇵🇰 Pakistan
Amid the latest escalating tensions between India and Pakistan, the Indian military in early April reportedly used an indigenous anti-drone system that includes a 2 kw laser weapon system to down a Chinese-made drone operated by Pakistan along the so-called Line of Control between the two countries. The Economic Times reports that Integrated Drone Detection and Interdiction System (IDDIS), built by India’s Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO), consists of a vehicle-mounted system capable of employing jamming and lasers as its soft and hard-kill options. Unfortunately, that report is based on anonymous “defense sources” and does not constitute full confirmation of an Indian laser kill in any way shape or form.
🇹🇷 Turkey vs 🇱🇾 Libya
According to a single report from a Russian military observer in Army Recognition, an unspecified Turkish laser weapon system (purportedly an ALKA) mounted on an Otokar Cobra armored tactical vehicle managed to down a Chinese Wing Loong II drone that the United Arab Emirates supplied to the Libyan National Army in Misrata, Libya in August 2019 during the latter’s civil war. There is no official confirmation of this claim by the Turkish government, let alone no independent confirmation, but such an incident if confirmed would constitute the first publicly-known laser weapon kill in the history of warfare, preceding the purported American and Russian takedowns by several years.
🇸🇦 Saudi Arabia vs 🇾🇪 Houthi Militants
In February 2023, Chinese state-run media reported that Saudi Arabia has at some point during the previous year deployed the Chinese-made 30 kilowatt “Silent Hunter” laser weapon system to shoot down 13 reconnaissance drones used by the Houthi militia in Yemen in a single engagement. But while Chinese state-own arms company (and Silent Hunter maker) Poly Technologies in February 2024 appeared to confirm that the Saudi system had achieved a hard kill against at least one Houthi attack drone, no independent confirmation of such an engagement is currently available.
🇷🇺 Russia vs 🇨🇳 China
Did the Soviet Union use laser weapons against Chinese troops way back in 1969? Probably not.
