Warfare

A senior Russian official told state media on Wednesday that a state-of-the-art laser weapons system has been deployed for active use in Ukraine, a claim that US defence authorities and military experts say has not been substantiated, and that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has mocked.

In an interview with the state-controlled Channel One, Russian Deputy Prime Minister Yury Borisov said the country’s latest laser weapon, dubbed “Zadira”, is now used by military units fighting in Ukraine.

The equipment is capable of incinerating targets up to 4.8km away within five seconds, he added, and is more advanced than the Peresvet, another laser system unveiled by Russian President Vladimir Putin in 2018.

“If Peresvet blinds an object, the new generation of laser weapons physically destroys the target. It is burned up,” Borisov said in the interview.

A senior Pentagon official told reporters during a news briefing on Wednesday that the United States has not seen any evidence to corroborate Borisov’s claim.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelensky mocked the notion of Zadira’s use and compared it to “wunderwaffe,” or wonder weapons. The term was coined during World War II by Nazi war propagandists who boasted the lethality of modern military equipment such as cruise missiles, even though historians now say these weapons were far less effective than advertised.

“All this clearly indicates the complete failure of the invasion,” Zelensky said Wednesday evening. “But again, this also shows that they are afraid to admit that catastrophic mistakes have been made at the highest state and military levels in Russia.”

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Mick Ryan, a retired Australian army major general, who has been studying the Russian invasion, told The Washington Post that weapons like Zadira could take down reconnaissance drones or Ukrainian artillery. It could also be used to blind Ukrainian soldiers, a tactic that is banned under international convention, he added.

Ryan cautioned against taking Russia’s words at face value in the absence of evidence to support Moscow’s assertions. Since the start of the war, Russia has repeatedly tried to “awe the Ukrainians and the West with their supposed superiority,” Ryan said.

“It hasn’t been working until now. It’s probably unlikely to work with an experimental laser system that’s yet to be proven to work.”

Days into his invasion of Ukraine, Putin heightened the West’s fear of nuclear warfare by announcing that he had put his nuclear deterrent forces on alert. His foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, backpedalled talks of brinkmanship last month and said Russia does not consider itself to be at war with Nato.

In March, US and British authorities confirmed that the Russian military fired two hypersonic missiles, but London downplayed the battlefield significance of those weapons, arguing that their use was probably intended to distract from Russia’s stuttering ground operations.

“The reality is there is no such thing as silver bullets in warfare. It didn’t work for the Nazis, and it’s not going to work for the Russians,” Ryan said.

The Washington Post

BAGHDAD – An embarrassing slip of the tongue by former US president George W. Bush may have drawn laughter from his American audience, but it raised the ire of Iraqis.

In a speech Wednesday evening in Dallas about Russia’s war on Ukraine, Bush called the invasion of Iraq, which he himself ordered, “unjustified and brutal” — before quickly correcting himself.

The 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq toppled dictator Saddam Hussein and ushered in one of the bloodiest periods in the country’s modern history, marked by sectarian warfare and the rise of jihadists.

Between 2003 and 2011, when the US withdrew its troops, more than 100,000 civilians were killed, according to the Iraq Body Count tracker. The invasion cost the lives of nearly 4,500 Americans.

But on Wednesday it was the war in Ukraine that Bush talked about during an event organised by his foundation.

“The decision of one man to launch a wholly unjustified and brutal invasion of Iraq, I mean of Ukraine,” he said in a speech, drawing laughter from the audience.

“Anyway — 75,” he added, referring to his own age, to another burst of laughter.

Video footage of the gaffe has since gone viral online, with one post on Twitter having been viewed more than 14 million times in less than half a day.

It was also picked widely up by Arab media, stoking anger among Iraqis.

“The spectre of Iraq’s invasion and destruction haunts Bush Jr. His subconscious exposed it when it took over his tongue,” Iraqi journalist Omar al-Janabi tweeted.

“Yes it is a brutal and unjustified invasion which will remain your worst nightmare”, he added.

Iraqis also took to Facebook to criticise the former US president.

“The moment of truth has come — the invasion of Iraq is a lifelong nightmare that plagues your conscience,” Hamza Qusai wrote.

“The crime of your occupation of Iraq and its destruction will remain a nightmare that haunts your sleep and torments your dead criminal consciences,” added Nahedh al-Tamimi.

The US-led invasion of Iraq was launched on March 20, 2003 after accusations that the Saddam regime had weapons of mass destruction. None were ever found.