Ukraine’s Tryzub laser can now hit drones up to 5 kilometers away

Ukraine’s Celebra Tech has integrated its Tryzub laser system into a mobile counter-drone platform capable of engaging targets from FPV drones to reconnaissance unmanned aircraft, the company told Militarny.

The Tryzub (the Ukrainian word for trident) was first publicly mentioned in December 2024 by Vadym Sukharevsky, the first commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces. Since that initial disclosure, Celebra Tech has continued developing the system from concept to an approved combat prototype, the company told Militarny.

The Unmanned Systems Forces conducted the system’s first public demonstration in April 2025, showing it engaging a ground target and blinding the camera of an FPV drone equipped with fiber-optic guidance.

According to Celebra Tech’s figures provided to Militarny, the Tryzub can engage enemy reconnaissance drones at ranges up to 1,500 meters, with an effective engagement range against FPV drones of 800 to 900 meters. The company also stated that the system is now practically capable of reaching targets at distances up to 5 kilometers, which the company says will enable effective engagement of Shahed-type drones. That range claim, if validated through operational use, would put the Tryzub in a category capable of addressing one of Ukraine’s most persistent air defense challenges — the Shahed-136 and its variants, which Russia has been launching in large numbers against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure throughout the war.

The upgrades Celebra Tech has implemented during the development period address the specific limitations that early laser counter-drone systems have faced in real-world deployment. The company has integrated AI-based terminal guidance, automatic target acquisition and tracking, and radar integration to receive precise trajectory data on incoming threats. Radar integration is particularly significant — a laser system that relies solely on its own optical sensors to acquire and track targets has a much narrower engagement window and is more susceptible to countermeasures than one that can receive targeting cues from an external radar network before the target comes into the laser’s own sensor range. Feeding radar track data into the laser’s fire control system allows it to orient toward an incoming threat before visual acquisition, compressing the reaction time and extending the effective engagement window.

The automatic target acquisition and tracking capability addresses the operator workload problem that has historically limited laser counter-drone systems in high-tempo operational environments. A human operator manually tracking a small, fast-moving FPV drone through an optical sight while simultaneously managing system parameters is performing a cognitively demanding task that degrades under stress and fatigue. Automating that tracking function allows the system to handle the engagement mechanics while the operator focuses on threat prioritization and system management — the same division of labor that has made automated tracking a standard feature of effective counter-drone systems across multiple technology approaches.

The Tryzub is built on a trailer platform, which provides the mobility to reposition rapidly to threatened sectors for protection of infrastructure objects or military positions. Mobility is a critical feature for a counter-drone system operating in Ukraine’s current conflict environment, where Russian targeting of Ukrainian air defense assets — including radar systems, missile launchers, and supporting equipment — has made static deployment a significant vulnerability. A laser system that can be moved quickly between protected sites and displaced after engagement is a harder target for Russian counter-fire than one that must remain at a fixed location to perform its mission.

The company noted that the Tryzub can be integrated into private air defense systems designed to protect critical infrastructure and strategically important enterprises. The concept of private air defense protecting industrial and energy facilities has emerged in Ukraine as a response to the scale of Russian drone attacks and the limitations of state air defense coverage to protect every economically significant target simultaneously.

A laser system available for private infrastructure protection, if priced and maintained accessibly, could add a layer of distributed defense to facilities that currently have no active protection against the kind of low-cost drone attacks Russia employs routinely. The company also noted the system’s potential application for mine clearance, reflecting the versatility that high-power laser output offers beyond air defense.