- Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the weapon could have "huge ramifications" for the conflict in Europe.
- The DragonFire weapon is expected to be rolled out by 2027, but Mr Shapps said he wanted to "speed up" production and make it available sooner.
A UK high-power laser weapon could soon be sent to Ukraine's front line to take down Russian drones.
Defence Secretary Grant Shapps said the weapon could have "huge ramifications" for the conflict in Europe.
The DragonFire weapon is expected to be rolled out by 2027, but Mr Shapps said he wanted to "speed up" production and make it available sooner.
It follows a successful trial of the laser, carried out against an aerial target for the first time in January.
The laser was originally expected to be operational by 2032, but new reforms intended to speed up government procurement of weapons mean that it will now be ready five years earlier.
Despite this, the defence secretary told reporters while on a visit of Porton Down military research centre near Salisbury that he wanted to speed this up even further.
"Let's say that it didn't have to be 100% perfect in order for Ukrainians perhaps to get their hands on it," he said.
The Ministry of Defence (MoD) says the faster timetable comes in response to the "rapidly changing threat environment" faced by the UK.
"It's designed to not wait until we have this at 99.9% perfection before it goes into the field, but get it to sort of 70% and then get it out there and then develop it from there," Mr Shapps said.
"But 2027 is still the date as of this moment," he continued.
The weapon is precise enough to hit a £1 coin from a kilometre away, according to the MoD. It is hoped that it will pave the way for a low-cost alternative to missiles, to shoot down targets such as drones.
January's successful test of the weapon was carried out at the MoD's Hebrides Range in Scotland and was hailed as a "major step" in bringing laser-directed energy weapons (LDEWs) into service.
LDEWs use an intense light beam to cut through their target and can strike at the speed of light. As a line-of-sight weapon, it can attack any visible target that is close enough, although the range of the DragonFire system is classified.
Missiles can be far more expensive than the drones they destroy, with some costing millions of pounds compared with a few thousand.
The MoD says firing the DragonFire system for 10 seconds is the cost equivalent of using a regular heater for an hour, with the operating expense typically less than £10 a shot.