{"id":10287,"date":"2026-06-28T07:24:06","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/10287\/"},"modified":"2026-06-28T07:24:06","modified_gmt":"2026-06-28T07:24:06","slug":"ukraines-fire-point-aims-to-produce-ballistic-missile-interceptor-by-year-end","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/10287\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s Fire Point aims to produce ballistic missile interceptor by year-end"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ukraine’s Fire Point, maker of the Flamingo cruise missile, is accelerating plans to develop a European missile \u200bdefense system after an agreement with German radar maker Hensoldt and hopes to have its first interceptors ready by the end of \u200cthe year.<\/p>\n

Fire Point, which is using its own FP-7X rocket as the interceptor missile, signed a memorandum of understanding with the Munich-based company last week, which will provide radar for the ballistic missile defense system, using its TRML-4D high-performance radar.<\/p>\n

Denys Shtilierman, Fire Point’s co-founder and chief designer, said the company was in the process of signing an agreement with a European \u200bdefense firm to provide the imaging infrared (IIR) homing device for the interceptor missile.<\/p>\n

Talks are also underway with another European firm to furnish a \u200bradio frequency (RF) seeker, which allows an interceptor missile to track targets using electromagnetic signals, Shtilierman said. He did not give \u2060the companies’ names.<\/p>\n

A global shortage of ballistic missile defenses is one of Ukraine’s<\/a> most pressing challenges in its four-year war with Russia. Demand for missile defenses \u200bhas increased from the US and its allies following the Iran war, while production of US-made Patriot missiles \u2014 the most effective system \u2014 has not kept pace with \u200bRussia’s output of ballistic missiles, which it uses to pound Ukrainian cities, infrastructure and military sites.<\/p>\n

\"FirefightersFirefighters work at the site of a residential building damaged during Russian drone and missile strikes, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv, Ukraine, February 22, 2026. (credit: REUTERS\/VALENTYN OGIRENKO)<\/p>\n

Last week Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy signed an agreement with Germany to jointly develop a European ballistic missile defense project. He invited other European countries to join the initiative, adding that Fire Point would participate.<\/p>\n

Seeking more European engagement<\/p>\n

Shtilierman said stronger political commitment from European countries has \u200baccelerated the timeline for the project, codenamed Freyja, which he had told Reuters in April would not be ready before the end of next year.<\/p>\n

“Something changed: our \u200bgovernment and a lot of other European governments, for example the German<\/a> government, connected to the initiative,” he told Reuters. “If, for example, every European government starts moving swiftly, we \u200ccan do \u2060interceptors by the end of this year.”<\/p>\n

“It all depends on the speed of movement of European bureaucracies.”
\u00a0
Completing the system would require European partners to provide a sophisticated data uplink to relay real-time target data from the radars to the interceptor missile, as well as a command-and-control center, Shtilierman said.<\/p>\n

For years, European manufacturers have struggled to develop an effective ballistic missile defense. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told local Radio NV last month that the SAMP\/T missile defense system produced by European \u200bmissile manufacturer MBDA had not yet proven \u200bcapable of downing ballistic missiles in \u2060combat in Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Ukraine nimbler on testing<\/p>\n

Shtilierman said wartime conditions in Ukraine, where the government had stripped away onerous regulations, allowed the company to press ahead far more quickly than European counterparts with testing.<\/p>\n

“How many months must you spend in \u200bEurope<\/a> on this? Maybe from six months to a year. We need one day,” he said.<\/p>\n

Fire Point is currently \u200bawaiting approval from European \u2060governments to start testing its interceptor missiles with the radar system, Shtilierman said.<\/p>\n

Hensoldt<\/a> did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n

Fire Point is on track to start flying tests over the summer for its new FP-9 ballistic missile, capable of carrying an 800-kg warhead up to 850 km, Shtilierman said. Battlefield tests for the munition, \u2060which would \u200bplace Moscow in range of Ukrainian ballistics, are expected by the autumn, he said.
\u00a0
Discussions with \u200ba Middle Eastern investor to take a $760-million, 30% stake in Fire Point are no longer active because the company’s valuation has risen beyond their offer.<\/p>\n

Shtilierman said a more recent offer from a “prominent investment \u200bbank” for a small number of shares in Fire Point valued the company at $5.8 billion. He did not provide further details.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ukraine’s Fire Point, maker of the Flamingo cruise missile, is accelerating plans to develop a European missile \u200bdefense…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[1521,488,2789,239,26,287],"class_list":["post-10287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-ballistic-missile","tag-defense-industry","tag-defense-tech","tag-missile-attacks","tag-ukraine","tag-ukraine-russia-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}