Andrew Gray wrote:

My personal interpretation is that it turned up post-1990,
some Russian technician telling war stories that got
exaggerated and then had "real" details attached. Anyone
know where it was first sighted?

I'm looking around, making inquiries, but haven't yet ID-ed
it before 2000. Soviet Military Power 1985-1986-1987, which
you'd certainly think would have made the vile deed public,
didn't. The closest it comes are statements like this from
1987, http://www.fas.org/irp/dia/product/smp_87_ch3.htm ,

The USSR's laser program is considerably larger than US
efforts and involves over 10,000 scientists and engineers
as well as more than a half-dozen major research and
development facilities and test ranges. Much of this
research takes place at the Sary-Shagan Missile Test
Center, where ABM testing also is conducted. At Sary-
Shagan alone, the Soviets are estimated to have several
lasers for air defense and two lasers probably capable of
damaging some components of satellites in orbit, one of
which could be used in feasibility testing for ballistic
missile defense applications.

BTW, the article that piqued my interest is
http://consrio.narod.ru/br/art=ADigos/tecnika/49.html .
I tried to find it in English or Russian and failed.
Fortunately journalistic Portuguese is not too unlike
journalistic Spanish.