The Ukrainian army claims to have tested at the front a weapon that looks like a science fiction gadget: in the images broadcast by a journalist, we can see a sort of luminous sphere appear in the field of the camera, then a Russian drone simply stops obeying, as if someone had just unplugged it… and that’s a bit what just happened, explains the Euromaidan Press site.
According to war reporter Andrii Tsaplienko, who published the images, the scene was filmed by a Russian military drone tasked with observing the battlefield. In the video, a directed beam – which could be similar to a laser – aims at the fiber optic cable which connects this “waiting drone” to its operator on the ground. The cable is cut, the connection is broken, and the enemy aircraft is neutralized discreetly, without a spectacular explosion.
What is intriguing is the appearance of the weapon in the images: instead of a very clear ray, as we are used to designing a laser, we can see an almost spherical shape, a strangely floating ball of light. This “ball” effect would in fact be an optical illusion linked to the shooting angle, reflections and the limits of the on-board camera. In reality, the beam would be fired from above, towards the cable.
Ukrainian journalist Andrii Tsaplienko released footage showing a new Ukrainian directed-energy weapon in combat use
The system fires a beam, likely a high-powered laser that severs the fiber-optic cables Russian forces use to control their so-called “waiting drones”
📹… pic.twitter.com/zkwm2ZSvTq— Euromaidan Press (@EuromaidanPress) March 10, 2026
This sequence is part of a broader trend: Ukraine is experimenting with directed energy weapons to respond to the threat of Russian drones, omnipresent at the front. In February, The Atlantic revealed the existence of a prototype Ukrainian laser system, called sunraydeveloped by local engineers and military personnel. The objective: to have a tool capable of destroying drones remotely, silently, without missiles or consumable ammunition, which are often expensive.
The economical laser
sunray does not resemble the futuristic canons imagined by Hollywood: described as a compact structure evoking a telescope equipped with cameras, it can fit in the trunk of a car before being attached to its roof. In a test observed by a journalist, the system detected and then burned a small drone in flight within seconds, without noise or visible light beam, simply by focusing its energy on the target. For the military, it is precisely this discreet nature that makes it an interesting tool for local anti-drone defense.
Behind this technological demonstration lies a very prosaic imperative: the war economy. Drones, often cheap, saturate air defenses; responding to everyone with an expensive missile no longer makes sense for a country that already lacks ammunition. A laser shot does not consume any explosive charge or projectile: once the system is paid for, each “shot” costs a few euros of electricity, whereas a surface-to-air missile can cost several tens or hundreds of thousands of euros.
The designers of sunray explain that they need around two years to develop their prototype, at a cost of a few million euros, and are aiming for a unit sales price of around a few hundred thousand euros. If they succeed, they will finally cost dozens of times less than certain comparable Western systems: the US Navy’s HELIOS laser, developed by Lockheed Martin, for example, is part of programs costing several tens or even hundreds of millions of dollars for the first copies.
If Ukraine manages to industrialize a functional solution at this price level, it could not only equip its own front, but also position itself on a market that Western armies are already watching very closely.
In kyiv, this new generation of lasers is sometimes presented as a future pillar of a “Ukrainian-style” anti-aircraft shield, often compared, at least in intention, to the Israeli Iron Dome. The idea is not to replace the missile batteries, but to add an additional layer to them, dedicated mainly to drones and lurking munitions, against which directed energy firing would be more financially rational.
Systems like sunray or similar prototypes currently being tested could thus protect infrastructure and units on the front line, while the missiles would be reserved for heavier threats. There remains a dark side, voluntarily maintained by the Ukrainian authorities: if the images broadcast seem to confirm the operational use of an energy weapon directed against a Russian drone, nothing says precisely if this is the system sunraya derivative or another prototype.
