The features of the damage of the surface layer of vanadium under the action of pulsed laser radiation are studied. Laser irradiation is carried out in air using a GOS 1001 setup in the Q-switching mode with the following parameters: flux power density q = 1.2 × 10 8 W/cm 2 , pulse duration τ 0 = 50 ns, and number of pulses N = 1–6. The typical surface damages induced by the laser pulses are found to include the melting of material, a microcrack network, a wavy relief, and drop-like particles. The central region characterized by the greatest degree of damage contains also individual drops of metal, which crystallized like a spiral. The heat-affected zone (HAZ) adjacent to the central one is damaged to a significantly weaker extent. Surface degradation increases as the number of pulses increases. Laser irradiation is revealed to change the X-ray diffraction (XRD) patterns: loss of texture, presence of vanadium-oxide signal, peak broadening, and lattice parameter increase (from 3.022(2) to 3.027(3) Å). It is shown that preliminary irradiation with argon ions (dose of 10 22 m –2 , E = 20 keV) affects no surface damage of the central region, while in the adjacent heat-affected zone, there is a spallation of local surface regions.