Fire Point, a Ukrainian arms start-up founded after Russia's 2022 invasion, is now producing around 100 long-range Flamingo cruise missiles and hundreds of drones a day, making it central to Ukraine's ability to strike deep inside Russian territory. Chief executive Iryna Terekh says almost every recent deep-strike attack has involved the company's weapons, which are now hitting Russian targets at a rate of five to fifteen times daily, marking a significant leap in Ukraine's homegrown long-range strike capability that the West was previously reluctant to provide.

The Flamingo missile carries 1,150kg of explosives and was used in June to hit a factory more than 600 miles away in Cheboksary, with an actual flight path of around 1,800km, among the longest recorded cruise missile missions in history. Each Flamingo costs under $600,000, far cheaper than the US Tomahawk's roughly $3.5m, while the lighter FP-1 drones, costing $55,000–$75,000, have helped cut Russian oil refinery output by 20%. Fire Point now runs 83 factories in Ukraine plus one in Denmark, employing 6,000 people, up from 3,500 late last year, and is also developing Ukraine's first ballistic missiles.