Inside Ukraine’s start-up weapons industry rising from the ashes

Naive, self-sabotaging and riddled with Moscow’s agents, Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons and an arms industry that produced a third of the Soviet Union’s supply, trusted the West and the Kremlin to protect it, and was left fighting for its life.

Now, 30 years on, the start-up nation redefining how war is fought has been forced into a bodge-and-make-do world of arms production, fusing old technology with IT know-how to break the bonds its allies tied to make Kyiv fight one-handed.

The latest innovation is a cruise missile with a range of 3,000km, a maximum speed of 900kmph and a payload of over a tonne, which has been used in strikes deep into Russian territory.

The FP-5 “Flamingo” missile is powered by a rocket and a Soviet-era turbofan jet engine bolted on top. Some of those engines have been dug out of landfill dumps.

It’s got twice the range of the US Tomahawk, carries twice as much explosive and costs about the same.

But its main advantage is that it is entirely under the control of Ukraine’s forces. The UK and France restricted the use of the Anglo-French Storm Shadow cruise missiles to Russian targets inside Ukraine for many months.

The US reduced the ability of Ukraine to use American ATACM missiles against Russian targets in Russia and has not yet decided on whether to allow access to Tomahawks, that would be paid for by European allies.

In contrast, Kyiv can fire the Flamingo at any target it wants. It is not restricted by what Ukraine’s “allies” say it can and cannot do when fighting Russia’s invading forces.

Prototypes were painted pink to make them easier to retrieve from test flights. They strike deep inside Russia and are designed to destroy Moscow’s capacity to wage war in Ukraine.

Targeting oil refineries has had a measurable effect. Russia has at times lost about 20 per cent of its fuel capacity and pump prices have soared by 10 per cent.

Ukraine’s focus has been on the Fluid Catalytic Cracking plants inside refineries – they’re mostly imported from the West and Russia is banned from buying any more.

With arms supplies from the West so uncertain, Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine now makes about 60 per cent of its own weapons.

“When you have a gun being pointed towards your head, you don’t think about standards, you think that ‘this should be working’,” says Iyna Terech, the chief technology officer of Fire Point, which makes Flamingos among other munitions.

“And the huge achievement of the Ukrainian government is to downgrade the bureaucracy pressure as much as possible so that technology can thrive.