Ukraine’s Fire Point seeks cheaper alternative to Patriot with European partners

Fire Point, the manufacturer of Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missile, is in talks with European companies to develop a cheaper alternative to the Patriot air defense system.

The company’s co-founder and chief designer, Shtilerman, said Fire Point aims to reduce the cost of intercepting a ballistic missile to below $1 million.

He also said the company was awaiting government approval for an investment from a Middle Eastern company that values Fire Point at $2.5 billion.

Reuters reported that many Ukrainian defense companies are seeking to expand into exports and secure a share of rising global military spending.

According to the agency, Ukraine, like most Western countries, relies heavily on the US Patriot system for missile interception. But the system is becoming increasingly scarce because of large-scale deployments in the Gulf.

Europe’s only missile defense system, SAMP/T, is also produced in relatively limited quantities.

Shtilerman said the Patriot system often uses two or three anti-aircraft missiles to strike a single munition, with each of those missiles worth several million dollars.

“If we can bring the cost below $1 million, that will be a turning point in air defense solutions. We plan to carry out the first ballistic missile interception at the end of 2027,” Shtilerman said.

According to the chief designer, Fire Point has reached the final stage in the development of two supersonic ballistic missiles, the FP-7 and FP-9.

Shtilerman compared the FP-7 to the ATACMS ballistic system. He said the missile has a range of about 300 kilometers and, in his words, would be used for the first time “in the near future.”

According to Shtilerman, the FP-9 can carry an 800-kilogram warhead to a distance of up to 850 kilometers. He added that testing of the missile would begin soon.

Shtilerman said attacks on Moscow, which is surrounded by some of the world’s most powerful air defense systems, would lead to “massive changes in Russia’s way of thinking and in Russia’s top leadership.”

Meanwhile, Peterson Institute for International Economics researcher Elina Ribakova and economic analyst Lukas Reisinger previously wrote in an article for Foreign Affairs that Europe had spent billions of euros on Ukraine instead of on its own defense industry, turning Ukraine into the EU’s unused arsenal for long wars.