Technology
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Yes that's true but the power requirement (not to mention cooling) exponentially increases the further the object is because of the light spreading. The amount of burst power and light density needed for a long-range laser is bonkers and making it go further will requires exponential bonkers.
This is why they frequently fire them using pulses but even then getting them to destroy objects at a very long distance gets harder and harder the further the object is. If the drone flies near a laser then it works wonders. If the drone flies around the area laser then it's not much more effective than simple airshot munition.
I checked the article but didn't see a video in it so I'm not sure what the laser managed to do here.
Maybe it is, but unless this interception was very long range they haven't found the magical bullet yet and it isn't much of an improvement over air-burst ammunition or interception drones.
Do you think the engineers building this system might've done the basic math to figure these things out?
And there is a whole interview they did on a Russian TV channel where they show the system in action and taking out Ukrainian drones. You can watch it here. https://southfront.press/russia-unveils-secretive-lasers-downing-ukrainian-drones-videos/
If my high school physics and maths aren't failing me, it's not growing exponentially, it's growing quadratically because inverse-square law.
Though maybe the energy required to power the laser increases exponentially but idfk