This text is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a publication about navy laser weapons and different futuristic protection expertise.
The footage is 40 seconds lengthy and, relying in your expectations, both mundane or extraordinary.
Shot from the deck of a vessel within the harbor of the Russian port metropolis of Novorossiysk on the night time of Could 22-23 and published to social media by conflict tracker Exilenova Plus on Could 28, a Ukrainian assault drone flies low throughout the fog-shrouded Black Sea towards a Russian warship. The footage reveals Russian forces transfer to intercept the incoming menace: the harbor lights shimmer within the water as tracer hearth arcs by the overcast sky. All of a sudden, vivid blue beams of sunshine slice throughout the body and sweep towards the incoming drone. Shiny sufficient to mirror off the water’s floor, they seem like one thing out of a science fiction film. The drone hits its goal anyway.
The main points of the exceptional assault are unclear. Ukraine’s Unmanned Methods Forces (USF) stated on Could 23 that the strike, a part of a broader assault on Novorossiysk that additionally focused oil storage services, had broken the Russian frigate Admiral Essen, however the navy’s Normal Workers claimed the subsequent day that the drone had truly struck the patrol ship Pytlivyi. What’s not in dispute is what the footage reveals: Russian forces deployed low-power laser dazzlers towards an incoming Ukrainian drone. And, extra importantly, they didn’t work.
Watch the total footage of the engagement from Exilenova Plus:
When the footage of the Novorossiysk assault went viral final week, an open-source intelligence analyst quickly identified the doubtless supply of these vivid blue beams as a 445nm gallium nitride (GaN) laser, a commercially out there, comparatively cheap blue laser that was, in all probability, specifically chosen to exploit a vulnerability in drone cameras.
Right here’s the technical logic, so far as I perceive it: a majority of first-person view (FPV) and maritime assault drones rely on silicon-based Cost-Coupled System (CCD) or Complementary Metallic-Oxide-Semiconductor (CMOS) imaging sensors for his or her cameras. Again-illuminated CCD sensors, that are widely used for his or her superior low-light efficiency (the form of situations you’d encounter in, say, a foggy harbor at night time) are highly sensitive to gentle within the 400-500nm wavelength vary resulting from their quantum effectivity. Level a blue laser at a drone’s digicam with sufficient energy and you’ll wash out the picture completely with a flood of photons, leaving an operator flying blind.
The blue laser dazzler presents an affordable and interesting counter-drone choice. The 445nm Nichia NUBM44 diode, one of the vital highly effective commercially out there blue laser parts, is broadly out there by business channels, and scaling quite a lot of models up right into a multi-emitter array may produce a succesful dazzler for a fraction of the price of a kinetic interceptor. Russian forces seem to have been using these programs in Novorossiysk since at least November 2025, suggesting this tactic has months of operational historical past behind it. (To be clear: no open-source report has definitively confirmed that the beams within the Novorossiysk footage are particularly 445nm GaN lasers.)
The employment of dazzlers for port safety suits neatly with Russia’s ongoing push for counter-drone laser capabilities. The Russian navy has been documented deploying its Chinese language-made 30 kilowatt Silent Hunter laser weapon since at least May 2025, in response to footage circulated on Russian Telegram channels. Russia’s personal domestically-developed LazerBuzz system has reportedly intercepted FPV drones at ranges exceeding a kilometer (though these claims originate with the producer and haven’t been independently verified). And as lately as early Could, state-run TASS reported that Moscow had issued a proper decree itemizing counter-drone laser weapons among the many programs on lively responsibility defending the nation’s airspace borders.
So what went incorrect with the Novorossiysk laser protection? Based mostly on the footage released by the USF displaying the assault from the angle of the drone—described as an FP-1/2, so doubtless produced by Ukrainian protection tech firm Fire Point—signifies the system was doubtless counting on thermal imaging on its terminal strategy. Certainly, the footage has the attribute black-and-white rendering of an infrared seeker, with the goal ship’s superstructure and equipment glowing with warmth towards the cooler water and dock.
That is most likely why the dazzlers failed: a blue laser (or any visible-spectrum laser, for that matter) can not bodily saturate a thermal imaging sensor. The 2 programs function in numerous components of the electromagnetic spectrum, with completely completely different detector supplies and physics.
The challenges for dazzlers on this situation transcend simply sensor mismatch. Hearth Level drones navigate primarily by way of inertial programs augmented by satellite tv for pc steerage with anti-jamming options. In opposition to a set, moored goal like a warship in harbor, the probably assault profile is autonomous—the drone flies to a GPS coordinate and hits no matter is there, no reside digicam feed required. This makes blinding an operator irrelevant.
There’s additionally the matter of environmental situations. Novorossiysk harbor at night time, in overcast climate, is precisely the form of environment that degrades laser efficiency. Fog, sea spray, and maritime humidity scatter and attenuate laser beams in order that even a well-aimed dazzler loses punch by moist air—a well-documented challenge that the U.S. Protection Division has spent appreciable money and time attempting to unravel with its personal shipboard laser efforts.
And eventually, there’s the geometry of the terminal assault run itself. An FPV drone closing on a goal at pace presents a laser operator a quickly shrinking window to accumulate, observe, and illuminate the system’s digicam. Even vehicle-mounted programs face vital physics challenges right here, which is why so many protection contractors are actively pursuing AI-assisted targeting to make sure operators can profit from each second throughout a fast-moving engagement.
Dazzlers aren’t a brand new idea. As previously noted, the thought of utilizing intense gentle to disrupt airborne threats dates again to World Conflict II, and naval forces have lengthy used high-intensity searchlights to disorient adversaries at sea. In the course of the 1982 Falklands Conflict, the UK Royal Navy deployed a shipboard laser dazzler designed to defend floor warships towards assault runs by Argentine plane, though that system was by no means truly fired in fight.
The Novorossiysk footage reinforces simply how shortly and broadly laser dazzlers are proliferating internationally’s militaries in response to the ever-expanding menace of low-cost weaponized drones. The U.S. Navy has now fielded eight Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy (ODIN) programs throughout its Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyer fleet to blind the sensors of hostile drones and surveillance platforms; certainly, an ODIN system was visible in pictures of the destroyer USS Spruance launching Tomahawk cruise missiles at Iran throughout Operation Epic Fury in February, though whether or not the warship truly fired its dazzler in anger is a query the Navy gained’t but reply. In recent times, Chinese language warships have used lasers to harass adversary military aircraft over the Red Sea and warships in the South China Sea, whereas a Russian spy ship directed lasers at UK Royal Air Pressure pilots off the coast of Scotland final November 2025. The UK Ministry of Protection is even reportedly exploring a domestic laser dazzler network to guard navy installations from drone incursions.
It’s additionally value noting {that a} rising variety of militaries at the moment are additionally pursuing man-portable laser weapons, typically described as “laser rifles,” as an more and more interesting countermeasure towards uneven threats. In recent times, Navy sailors have used handheld dazzlers to ward off hostile Iranian watercraft within the Strait of Hormuz and watch over main naval belongings like aircraft carriers and submarines throughout port calls or whereas traversing busy waterways. France, Russia, South Korea, Indonesia, and Belarus have all developed or fielded handheld laser dazzler programs previously yr, as has at least one American protection contractor. (Phasers, unfortunately, they are not.)
That is the present face of the Laser Wars: not the missile-killing demise rays that Pentagon officers have promised for many years (not yet, at least), however sensible dazzlers sweeping throughout the sky just like the searchlights of outdated. However the Novorossiysk footage can also be a reminder that dazzlers aren’t an ideal answer—and that, as drone builders more and more design their programs to account for the particular threats they face on the battlefield, these countermeasures should proceed to evolve as effectively.
Nonetheless, when coastal defenders confronted with an affordable assault drone attain for a laser throughout a firefight—even when it’s a low-power dazzler—then the character of warfare has essentially shifted. They’re not fairly C-beams glittering in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate, however they’re shut sufficient.
This text is republished with permission from Laser Wars, a publication about navy laser weapons and different futuristic protection expertise.
