Russia Deploys Chinese Laser Weapon for Air Defense
Moscow appears to have a 'Silent Hunter' in its arsenal.
Russia has reportedly deployed a Chinese-made high-energy laser weapon system to counter the threat of Ukrainian drones, according to new footage circulating on social media.
Defence Blog reports that pro-regime Russian media are circulating a video showing what appears to be a 30 kilowatt “Silent Hunter” Low-Altitude Laser Defending System (LASS) deployed to an undisclosed location with Russian special operations forces.
The footage shows the laser array emerging from camouflage netting and burning through a steel plate during field testing before engaging fixed-wing drone targets. It’s unclear the drone shootdowns took place during additional testing or a live combat engagement.
“Previously, there was an opinion in the domestic information environment that combat lasers were useless and expensive toys,” according to Russian Telegram channel Military Informant, which first posted the footage of the Silent Hunter system on May 30. “However, new threats identified during the [Russian invasion of Ukraine] forced us to look for alternative methods of counteraction. Thanks to the development of new technologies, laser systems have become an effective tool for destroying Ukrainian UAVs.”
Watch Russia’s new Chinese-made laser weapon shoot down drones
Developed by Chinese state-owned arms company Poly Technologies and first unveiled at the Africa Aerospace & Defence (AAD) military expo in South Africa in September 2016, the Silent Hunter purportedly has a range of up to 4 kilometers. According to a 2017 testimony on China’s directed energy weapon efforts before a congressional commission, Poly officials screened a video at AAD showing Silent Hunter burning through five 2 millimeter steel plates at a range of 800 meters before asserting the system could penetrate a 5 millimeter steel target at a range of 1,000 meters.
Russia’s deployment of the Silent Hunter is not the laser weapon’s first. According to Poly officials, the Chinese military had previously used the system to secure the G-20 Summit in the city of Hangzhou the same month the system debuted at AAD. By October 2022, Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Defense had procured and deployed at least one Silent Hunter to protect against surveillance and reconnaissance drones and loitering munitions operated by Iran-backed Houthi militias in Yemen.
(In October 2024, the Iranian government reportedly deployed a laser system in the capital of Tehran as part of security measures for a public sermon by Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, but The War Zone rightly notes that the system was likely a Shen Nung laser weapon and not Silent Hunter.)
If confirmed, Silent Hunter’s Russian deployment would mark a major inflection point for the Kremlin’s laser ambitions. Russian officials had previously claimed in May 2022 that the military had deployed two laser weapon systems, Peresvet and Zadira, to Ukraine to help protect troopd against the threat of hostile drones, although the US Defense Department stated at the time that it had seen no indication that Moscow had actually done so. This past April, Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the country’s military-industrial leaders to “accelerate” the development of laser weapons in order to “stay one step ahead” of Western militaries.
While it’s unclear how extensively Russia will field Silent Hunter, its battlefield debut also signals a growing convergence between Russian and Chinese defense tech ecosystems. Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, China has allegedly funneled “dual use” components like machine tools and specialty chemicals to Russia to support the country’s flagging defense-industrial base, while Chinese-made navigation chips and electronic components have helped sustain Moscow’s drone production in the face of Western sanctions. Silent Hunter’s appearance is just the most visible sign of this deeper geopolitical and technological entanglement.
With Saudi Arabia, Iran, and now Russia fielding Chinese-made directed energy systems, Silent Hunter may emerge as the first globally proliferated tactical laser weapon – a prospect that could complicate Western assumptions about who dominates the future of the Laser Wars.
Great post
In other news, a farmer was seen closing the barn door after his horses had vacated.