A combat laser is rightfully considered a terrible weapon of tomorrow, Alexander Mikhailov, head of the Bureau of Military-Political Analysis, told Zvezda.
“It is quite possible that in 10-15 years, laser weapons may acquire the status of a kind of deterrent, which nuclear weapons have. And those states that will have it in their armed forces, of course, will have more military and geopolitical advantages, as a result, over their, so to speak, foreign partners,”the expert said.
According to him, a combat laser is capable of destroying satellites in low-earth orbit, disabling the electronics of spacecraft and acting as a striking factor in aerial combat. Mikhailov named Russia and the United States as world leaders in the development of such weapons, as well as, possibly, China.
“So far, only Russia has announced that it has officially entered the troops of a laser military device. The Americans are only announcing the end of the tests, which will end in about a year and a half to two years,”the expert said.
On April 23, at the White Sands training ground in New Mexico, the US Air Force used a ground prototype laser system to destroy air-launched missiles.
In December 2018, the official press organ of the Russian Ministry of Defense, the Krasnaya Zvezda newspaper, wrote that the Peresvet ground-based laser systems had taken up experimental combat duty in the country.
