Russia threatens to use laser cannons to incinerate drones & ‘blind’ Western satellites in chilling warning over Ukraine

RUSSIA could use new-age laser weapons to disrupt Western satellites or Ukrainian drones in the current war, a top Kremlin official has hinted.

Yury Borisov, deputy premier in charge of military development, said the new mobile system, Peresvet, was already deployed with Moscow’s forces.

He said: "It can ‘blind’ all satellite reconnaissance systems of an ‘enemy’ up to an orbit of 1,500km [932 miles], thanks to laser radiation."

Reports have said Western satellites have been used to hand intelligence to Ukraine on Russian military movements.

Borisov said Russian weapon designers demonstrated a separate new laser system to knock down enemy drones with a burst of intense heat.

He said: “Today our physicists developed, and are almost serially producing, laser systems causing heat damage.

“This was shown yesterday from a 5km [3 miles] distance… A drone was burned in five seconds and simply stopped existing.

“Weapon systems on the way will be based on new physical principles and will define our Armed Forces’ combat readiness in the future.”

Borisov said that laser and electromagnetic broadband weapons will replace [conventional weapons] in the coming decades.

He added: “This is no longer exotic but reality already.”

Putin had unveiled the Peresvet - after medieval Orthodox warrior monk Alexander Peresvet - in 2018.

Russia has been working on a range of futuristic military tech, like Peresvet.

A weapon dubbed "Star Warrior" that can blast satellites out of orbit at heights of up to 500 miles above Earth.

Russia's President Vladimir Putin used the weapon to destroy a redundant Soviet-era Tselina-D military reconnaissance satellite - blasting it into an orbital debris field.

Putin tested the missiles nine times between 2014 and 2020 before it was deployed to destroy an actual satellite on November 15, according to the Moscow-based Centre for Analysis of Strategy and Technologies.

Putin's "Star Warrior" missile system is believed to fire 14TS033 two-stage interceptor missiles which on the final version will be able to be armed with a nuclear or kinetic warhead.