The US has warned it could walk away from brokering talks and consider imposing sanctions on Russia if Vladimir Putin does not accept a comprehensive 30-day ceasefire. Kyiv has accused Moscow of deception in negotiations, as Russia stalls in revealing its terms. Follow the latest below.
Friday 30 May 2025 14:05, UK
Israel’s laser weapons debut in combat as NATO eyes next-gen defenses. Low-cost, battlefield-proven tech—but geopolitics may block export deals.
The Defense Ministry’s confirmation that Rafael’s laser interception systems were used during the ongoing Swords of Iron war comes at a pivotal moment. NATO countries are preparing to raise their defense spending to 5% of gross domestic product (GDP), a shift expected to generate some €800 billion in procurement.
With Israeli companies Rafael Advanced Defense Systems and Elbit Systems already embedded in NATO supply chains, their next-generation laser systems could become Israel’s next multi-billion-dollar defense export—if diplomatic friction doesn’t block the path.
Despite more than 10,000 successful interceptions since 2011, Israel’s Iron Dome air-defense system—developed by Rafael—has never been sold as a full system to any foreign country. While the United Kingdom purchased its battle management center and the United States Marine Corps acquired its interceptors, no nation to date has received the complete platform.
This contrasts with the international success of other Israeli air-defense systems. The Arrow 3, developed by Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), was sold to Germany in a $3.5 billion deal. David’s Sling, another Rafael system, was sold to Finland for €317 million. Rafael’s Barak MX system has racked up roughly $10 billion in global sales. Despite Iron Dome’s strong brand recognition, it has lagged behind these systems in terms of foreign adoption.
Meanwhile, other Israeli-made weapons have already become NATO standards. Rafael’s Spike anti-tank guided missiles have been sold in the billions of dollars and are produced in Germany, with previous manufacturing in Poland.
In recent years, Elbit’s PULS rocket artillery system has gained momentum, with confirmed sales to Germany, the Netherlands, and Denmark—alongside several undisclosed NATO members. Ukraine’s successful use of comparable systems against Russian targets has only added to the demand.
Israel now hopes its laser-based interception technology will be next in line for global adoption—and it’s betting billions on it.
The Defense Ministry recently disclosed the existence of two laser systems: Magen Or (Iron Beam), a high-powered 100-kilowatt laser developed jointly by Rafael and Elbit Systems, and Lahav Barzel (Iron Sting), a smaller 30-kilowatt system designed by Rafael. Magen Or has intercepted short-range rockets at distances of up to 10 kilometers in tests. The IDF is expected to deploy an operational version by the end of the year.
Lahav Barzel, which was used in combat for the first time during Swords of Iron, is more compact and energy-efficient. Rafael and Israeli vehicle manufacturer Plasan have already developed a mobile version mounted on Plasan’s SandCat armored vehicle, enabling rapid redeployment between combat zones.
Footage released by the Defense Ministry showed Lahav Barzel successfully intercepting unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) launched by Hezbollah. The laser doesn’t obliterate the drones in dramatic fashion—rather, it focuses heat on the drone’s wing or fuselage until the structural integrity fails and the UAV crashes. The cost per interception is just a few dollars, limited to the electricity required to power the laser.
By contrast, using interceptor missiles or air-to-air munitions can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars per engagement. For American readers, that cost-efficiency could resonate strongly, particularly given current U.S. debates over defense budgets and aid allocations.
As warfare becomes increasingly reliant on drone technology—seen most visibly in Ukraine and Russia’s tit-for-tat strikes involving hundreds of UAVs each week—Israel’s laser defense systems offer something rare: proven battlefield results at a fraction of the price.
The case for Israel’s laser technology is not only tactical but financial. However, Rafael CEO Yoav Turgeman acknowledged that export success also depends on geopolitical considerations—particularly growing European criticism of Israeli operations in Gaza.
France, for example, reportedly attempted to dissuade Germany from purchasing the Arrow 3 system, and other European countries have downplayed their acquisitions of Israeli-made systems in response to domestic political concerns. While some European defense ministries are eager to procure Israeli technologies, officials are increasingly constrained by the political environment.
Nevertheless, the security rationale remains persuasive. NATO states such as Finland, Sweden, Poland, and Germany—countries increasingly concerned about potential Russian aggression—view laser interception systems as a vital new layer of defense. While the United States has deployed 60-kilowatt laser systems on naval vessels, Israel appears poised to be the first country to field a land-based laser system in operational service.
Russia has proposed holding the next round of peace talks with Ukraine on June 2 in Istanbul, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday.
"The Russian side, as agreed, has promptly developed a relevant memorandum, which sets out our position on all aspects of reliably overcoming the root causes of the crisis," he said.
The Russian delegation, led by Vladimir Medinskiy, is ready to present the memorandum to the Ukrainian side and to provide necessary clarifications during the second round of resumed direct talks in Istanbul next Monday, Lavrov added.
Medinsky said on the Telegram messaging app that he had called Ukraine's Defense Minister Rustem Umerov on Wednesday with proposals for the date and venue of the next meeting.
"Let me emphasize: right there, on the spot, we are ready to begin an essential, substantive discussion of each of the points of the package agreement on a possible ceasefire," he said.
Medinsky said he expected a reply from Ukraine and that Russia's delegation was ready to meet its Ukrainian counterparts face-to-face in the coming days.
Separately, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said it was agreed that Russia and Ukraine would each prepare their vision of "modalities of settlement and ceasefire" and would discuss and exchange the documents at the next round of talks.
Under pressure from U.S. President Donald Trump to end the bloodiest conflict in Europe since World War II, delegates from the warring countries met earlier this month in Istanbul for the first time since March 2022, the month after Russia sent troops to its neighbor.
The talks failed to reach an agreement for a ceasefire.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, after a call with Trump on May 19, said that Moscow was ready to work with Ukraine on a memorandum about a future peace accord.
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Director Dustin Wills, a 2023 Obie winner, is leading his first local operatic production.
Dustin Wills
Tchaikovsky has long been Russian culture’s most iconic queer figure: the equivalent of Oscar Wilde or Virginia Woolf in British arts circles. All three contracted conventional marriages, least happily the composer. His conflicted and largely gay romantic path partly fueled his most accessible and tuneful opera, 1879’s “Eugene Onegin,” based on Pushkin’s novel-in-verse. Heartbeat Opera, since its inception a decade ago as New York’s most excitingly innovative and inclusive opera company, presents New York’s first explicitly queer reimagining of “Onegin” this month. Brilliant gay director Dustin Wills, a 2023 Obie winner, helms his first local operatic production, and the superb Jacob Ashworth conducts from the fiddle.
LGBTQ+ personnel and sensibility are hardly in short supply in the opera world but Heartbeat, though open to everybody, trends queerer than most. Queer Heartbeat co-founder Dan Schlosberg (pianist/composer/conductor) has been called the troupe’s “secret sauce” for his incredibly skillful — and also playful — arrangements of the scores, often incorporating jazz, bluegrass, and electric rock elements when you least expect them. “For the Russian-ness of ‘Onegin,’ which deploys nine musicians, we have our guitarist doubling balalaika. Plus there’s the harp for some dreamy parts — kind of a Russian and certainly queer special effect!” Tchaikovsky’s work — a pretty good “date opera”, by the way — plays alongside Schlosberg’s world première opera, “The Extinctionist,” about a young woman weighing childbearing given today’s environmental collapse. By design, Heartbeat foregrounds intersectional political content in many of their revisionist and (in a positive sense) provocative shows — with alternative sexuality, most notably in 2018’s “Fidelio” in which the title character was posing not as a man romancing the jailer Rocco’s daughter but (with Rocco’s approval) as a hot lesbian prospect. Schlosberg relishes the company’s annual Drag Extravaganzas, saying they’re “basically a big party to dress up and perform all kinds of arias and numbers with subtexts made explicit. Many younger people come and say they had no idea opera could be so cool — and we love that. Kind of a ‘gateway drug to opera’ thing.”
Wills and Ashworth have assembled a typically committed and diverse cast of attractive singing actors, centered on Indian baritone Edwin Joseph (Onegin) and Lebanese tenor Roy Hage (Lensky) and the sisters whose lives their shifting, ambiguous friendship complicates, Tatyana and Olga (Chicago-born soprano Emily Margevich, who just triumphed as Tatiana in Baltimore, and Mexican mezzo Sishel Claverie, Heartbeat’s terrific 2017 Carmen). In the rehearsal I attended, “The Talented Mr. Ripley” (in which scenes from “Eugene Onegin” actually figure) and “Top Gun” were bandied about in discussing the tragedy-bound bromance between the young aristocrats Onegin and Lenski.
Says Wills, “There’s a story here screaming to come out that I’ve never seen: the closest was Krzysztof Warlikowski’s “Brokeback Onegin” [in Munich], with lots of naked men in cowboy hats. I didn’t want to hit people over the head like that. Sexuality exists on a spectrum. Tchaikovsky’s recently-released letters show a very sophisticated individual dealing with his particular (for the time) issues with sexuality. That complexity brings a lot more to ‘Onegin’ than ‘boy meets girl, boy dumps girl, someone gets shot.’ In directing this, I think about my favorite writer, Lorca: sexually fluid, writing in a coded way with so much desire compacted together. All this desire eating these people alive, and they don’t know what to do with it! But it’s much more than just, ‘Oh — they’re gay!’ — which is pretty uninteresting. I like to think that Tchaikovsky has bisected himself into Onegin and Tatiana: each of them has what the other one needs, but can’t ever get it. So Olga and Lenski become the victims of this world that has placed this structure round them, keeping them from being the way they need to be.”
Wills’ complex reading of the two leading men’s overlapping desires and how the dynamics among “this strange little country romantic foursome” play out over time does not exclude moments of great humor alongside the teenage and 20-something angst, plus some explicitly hands-on experimentation between the guys during their big quarrel.
“The way the music and the text layer on the tension there, I’m like: I don’t know how else you would stage this! The mazurka there is the most sexual music in the whole score,” Wills said.
Wills stresses the interactivity of Heartbeat’s process; how he’s worked with Ashworth and Schlosberg to find moments that reinforce the concept but also challenge it. Then the singers come in with their insights and inspirations.
“Everybody’s in the mode of trying to get rid of their ideas of what they assume [“Eugene Onegin”] is, and come at it with fresh eyes,” Wills said.
Operalovers and those new to the form have seven chances to see what promises to be a fascinating and moving night in the theater.
“Eugene Onegin” | Heartbeat Opera | Baruch Performing Arts Center| 55 Lexington Ave., Manhattan | April 2-13 | Tickets from $10 | 100 minutes
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