Countries of the NATO bloc have intensified their reconnaissance drone flights over the Black Sea, prompting the russian Ministry of Defense to issue threats of "taking measures." However, it remains unclear what these measures might entail, as it is unlikely that the russians would risk launching missiles to down the UAVs.
This situation clearly frustrates the russians, who are now publicly contemplating possible responses. One of the solutions proposed by a russian military analyst Ilya Kramnik is to use the little-known domestic military "wunderwaffe" known as the A-60 — a flying laser system based on the IL-76 military transport aircraft. However, the russian blogger here has little room for imagination because the current status of the A-60 project is uncertain.
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Given that this is the first mention of the A-60 since the onset of the full-scale war against Ukraine, it’s worth exploring the project in more detail. The work on this flying laser system was initiated in the Soviet era during the 1970s, it was originally designed to destroy high-altitude observation balloons.
The first prototype (designated 1A) had its maiden flight in August 1981, and test flights with a 1 MW laser installation commenced in 1984. Some russian sources claim that "several dozen" test flights were conducted, during these tests, the laser was fired at a "stratospheric balloon" type of targets at altitudes of 30–40 kilometers and La-17 target drones.
However, the first prototype met a dramatic end when it burned down at the Chkalovsky airfield in 1989 under unspecified circumstances. The experimental A-60 was quickly restored and renamed 1A2, with test flights resuming in 1991. These tests were halted again in 1993, only to be resumed in 2009. Notably, even russian data indicate that only one copy of the A-60 was ever produced.
Interestingly, by the late 2000s, russia officially claimed that the A-60's flights were for "peaceful" purposes, ostensibly for "laser tracking" of spacecraft in the upper atmosphere. This did not stop russian propagandists from asserting that the A-60 had military applications and was another "one-of-a-kind" weapon for confronting the USA.
However, this is exactly where the discrepancy between propaganda and reality transpires, as it turns out, despite all the advertisement, the russians themselves don't know for sure what their flying laser A-60 is, and whether it can actually be used right now, during the full-blown war against Ukraine.
This discrepancy between propaganda and reality suggests that the russians themselves may not be certain of the A-60's capabilities or its applicability in the current war against Ukraine.
Defense Express notes that, besides the A-60, russia has two other laser weapon projects, the Szhatiye and Peresvet systems, neither of which has reached mass production. There is also the Zadira-16 laser weapon system, which supposedly exists only in drafts, with no even scale model presented since its announcement in 2017.
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