Ukra "Development of a new weapon 'Samjichang' capable of shooting down a flying object from 2km away"

An enlarged photo of the Trizub pattern engraved on the top of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, speaking at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. AFP Yonhap News Agency

The Ukrainian military claimed to have developed a weapon capable of shooting down a target from a distance of 2km.According to a CNN report on the 18th (local time)

, Ukrainian Unmanned Systems Forces (USF) commander Vadim Suharewski said at a meeting in the capital Kyiv this week, "Today we can drop the aircraft with this laser weapon at an altitude of more than 2km."

The name of the weapon is 'Trijub', which means 'Samjichang' in Ukraine, and it is also the name of the national insignia officially adopted by Ukraine in 1992, the year after independence.

Commander Suharewski said the weapon "actually works, it really exists" and is trying to scale up and determine its performance. CNN did not elaborate, but experts expressed the view that such weapons could actually exist.

"It is possible for Ukraine to develop a actually working 'Directional Energy Weapon' (DEW) with the ability to destroy some aerial targets," said Patrick Senft, a researcher at ARES, a consulting firm specializing in weapons information.

Senft said that using technologies such as welding lasers, which have already been commercialized and widely used, can make such weapons, and pointed out that Ukraine's range of 2km is similar to the Laser Weapon System (LaWS) that the U.S. Navy has been operating since 2014.

He explained that DEW would be particularly effective in shooting down low-speed, low-altitude flying drones that Russia has deployed to the war in Ukraine and used in attacks.

Currently, only a few countries, including the United States, China, and Israel, actually possess laser weapons. The UK is developing a system called 'Dragonfire' with the aim of deploying it in 2027.

Reporter Lee Yu Na from Digital News Team.