Flight of the “Flamingos”: Kyiv’s domestic missile production has the potential to offset Russia’s long-range strike advantage

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The Ukrainian missile industry has undergone dramatic changes since 2014, evolving from modest post-Soviet capabilities into a wartime hub of improvisation marked by increasingly ambitious domestic production. Although Russian interference, Western supply constraints, and shifting industrial capacity impose certain limits, Ukrainian efforts have culminated in the unveiling of new systems that aim to establish the country as one of Europe’s missile and long-range drone powers — perhaps even as the foremost European power in this regard.

Among the recently unveiled designs, the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile has drawn considerable attention for its size, range, and payload. Alongside other efforts, such as adapting the R-360 Neptune anti-ship missile for land-attack purposes and continuing development of the Sapsan short-range ballistic missile, Ukraine appears intent on offsetting Russia’s considerable advantage in heavy long-range strike weapons. The key question is whether Ukraine’s military-industrial complex can sustain this momentum by scaling up production enough to meaningfully influence the course of the war.

Historical context

Ukraine’s pre-war missile industry was characterized by uneven progress and structural dependence. Before 2022, production at design bureaus like Pivdenne (Yuzhnoye), Pivdenmash (Yuzhmash), and Luch provided a foundation, but output remained limited. The Vilkha guided rocket entered service in 2018, and the Neptune anti-ship cruise missile achieved initial operational capability in mid-2021 — only months before Russia’s full-scale invasion.

However, the Sapsan short-range ballistic missile program remained stuck in development, constrained by uncertain funding and various setbacks. Despite these difficulties, Ukraine retained a skilled workforce and legacy facilities, even if dependence on Russian components and disrupted supply chains after 2014 remained significant obstacles.

The outbreak of war in 2022 forced the industry into a state of improvisation. Russia likely targeted missile production hubs early, with confirmed strikes on infrastructure such as the Pivdenmash plant in Dnipro, which produced rocket motors, liquid fuel, and other components. At the same time, Ukraine began adapting existing systems — most notably the Neptune anti-ship cruise missile — for land-attack purposes. However, confirmed use of Neptune against land targets did not appear until August 2023, a fact that highlights the challenges the sector faced in the beginning of the war.

As a result, Ukraine’s long-range strike capability initially relied heavily on foreign supplies. Deliveries of Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG cruise missiles from the UK, France, and Italy, along with ATACMS short-range ballistic missiles from the United States, proved helpful but not decisively so. Western missile stocks were finite, and political restrictions curtailed their use against high-value targets inside Russia. Germany’s refusal to supply Taurus missiles further highlighted the need to move toward indigenous production.

As a result, by late 2023, Ukraine was already launching an ambitious effort to scale up domestic missile and drone production. Long-range drones such as the UJ-26 Bober, AN-196 Liutyi, and AQ-400 Scythe, along with mini-cruise missiles like Ruta and Pekklo, entered service and were produced in significant numbers. These systems offered long range capabilities, often exceeding that of Western-supplied strike weapons, but they carried relatively light payloads and operated at modest speeds.

Payloads often fell below 100 kilograms and were sometimes 10 kilograms or less, and terminal velocities were insufficient to penetrate hardened structures. While these long-range drone and missile systems were able to disrupt Russian strategic-level targets, they frequently lacked the lethality to cause catastrophic damage, allowing Russian operators to repair attacked facilities relatively quickly.

Enter the Flamingo

This context explains the excitement surrounding last month’s unveiling of the Flamingo cruise missile. The Flamingo is powered by a Motor Sich AI-25TL turbofan engine, commonly used in L-39 jet trainers. Reportedly, it provides the missile with a range of up to 3,000 kilometers, which theoretically places all high-value targets west of the Urals within reach. While the range is notable, the more important feature is arguably its ability to combine that range with a 1,150-kilogram payload. If these specifications are accurate, and if production can be scaled, it would constitute the first indigenously developed and mass-produced heavy missile system in Ukraine’s arsenal.

The Flamingo appears to be essentially the same cruise missile as the FP-5 developed by the British-Emirati Milanion Group, which was first displayed at the IDEX 2025 defense exhibition in Abu Dhabi, with Ukraine’s Fire Point company localizing production and assembly. The published specifications are virtually identical, and open sources describe the Ukrainian version as having been produced through cooperation with Milanion. What remains unclear is the extent of true Ukrainian design input and indigenous component manufacturing, as details on supply chains and subsystem origins — beyond the turbofan engine — are not publicly available.

Initial deployment experience of the Flamingo has been mixed. In early September 2025, three missiles were launched against an FSB outpost in Armyansk, northern Crimea. Of the three, only two reached the target area. One landed 100 to 200 meters off the mark, while the other impacted the outpost, causing significant damage though still likely deviating 10 to 40 meters from its nominal aimpoint. These results indicate the challenge of producing high-quality missile systems as Ukraine transitions from light drones and mini-cruise missiles to heavier platforms. That being said, the strike likely met minimum expectations and will provide valuable data for the manufacturer to improve the system.

The key challenge surrounding the Flamingo is production capacity. Fire Point, the Kyiv-based manufacturer, has claimed an output of one missile per day at present, with ambitions to scale to over 200 per month. These projections appear overly optimistic, with turbofan engine availability likely to be the bottleneck. Even so, steady production of 30 to 50 missiles per month would provide Ukraine with a substantial heavy missile stockpile.

Other heavy missile projects

Fire Point has not limited its ambitions to the Flamingo. At the International Defence Industry Exhibition in Kielce, Poland, it unveiled ballistic missile designs with ranges of 200 and 855 kilometers. These programs place Fire Point in direct competition with legacy heavy missile projects such as the Long Neptune, Sapsan, and Korshun, indicating broader competition within Ukraine’s missile industry over future direction and resources.

The Long Neptune is a longer-range land-attack evolution of Ukraine’s R-360 Neptune, previously used against both land and sea targets. In March 2025, President Zelensky stated that the missile, with a 1,000 km range, had been tested and used in combat, though this claim remains unconfirmed. In late August 2025, media coverage released the first imagery of the system. While the rear and front sections — housing the engine, warhead, and guidance system — appear largely similar to the baseline Neptune, the midsection is longer and wider in diameter, likely to accommodate additional fuel for extended range.

Guidance is presumed to be INS with satellite updates, while terminal seekers remain unconfirmed but plausible. The missile likely retains the baseline Neptune’s original 150-kilogram payload capacity, placing it at the lower end of Ukraine’s heavy missile programs. Combined with its high subsonic terminal velocity, however, it still delivers a significant punch.

The Sapsan is a road-mobile, single-stage, solid-fuel short-range ballistic missile with a nominal 480-kilogram payload and a range of up to 500 kilometers, though unconfirmed reports suggest the range could be significantly greater. Development began in 2006, and an export version, the Hrim-2, was co-financed by Saudi Arabia starting in 2014.

Since the beginning of the full-scale war, the status of Sapsan remained unclear, but Ukrainian reporting in mid-June 2025 stated that combat testing had concluded in May and that serial production was beginning. Open-source evidence of deployed batteries and operational use remains limited, however. In mid-August 2025, Russia claimed to have comprehensively struck missile production facilities linked to the program, though the actual impact of these strikes is unknown.

The Korshun is a subsonic cruise missile concept based on the Soviet/Russian Kh-55, with planned ground, air, and naval launch options. Open reporting describes a warhead of roughly 480 kilograms and a range between 700 and 1,000 kilometers, though it may be in fact be longer. Korshun is the most uncertain of Ukraine’s legacy missile projects. By January 2025, Ukrainian media listed it among the programs that had not reached production or service. There is no verified evidence of series production or combat use, and current priorities appear to favor other cruise missiles.

At this stage, it is uncertain whether Flamingo will indeed become the preferred heavy missile system in Ukraine’s arsenal. It remains possible that a legacy system will be advanced, or that an entirely new candidate will emerge. What seems clear, however, is that Ukraine is on a path toward complementing its existing light missile and long-range strike arsenal with one or more heavy missile capabilities. This being said, all heavy missile projects discussed above are significantly more expensive than mini-cruise missiles and long-range drones. Funding for Ukraine’s industry may therefore become a growing bottleneck. If Ukraine cannot close this gap independently, foreign financing will become increasingly important.

Implications for the war in Ukraine

If and when Ukraine deploys a heavy missile capability, its ultimate impact will depend primarily on two factors: production numbers and Russia’s ability to counter these new threats. Scaling production will require building robust supply chains distinct from those used for lighter missiles and long-range drones, which may prove difficult without stable funding. Even then, production expansion is not straightforward. Still, even a modest number of heavy missiles would complicate Russian planning. For instance, Flamingo’s 3,000-kilometer range would force Russia to disperse its missile defense assets accordingly, regardless whether the number of missiles available to Ukraine each month is 20 or 200.

In short, even if Ukrainian production remains limited, Moscow will likely be unable to fully negate the impact of these systems. Russia no longer has the air and missile defense assets to protect its entire territory, especially as longer-range Ukrainian systems expand the area that must be defended. For months, Ukraine has conducted a relatively effective suppression and destruction of enemy air defense campaign, systematically targeting Russian radars and launchers. This has likely created gaps in Russia’s integrated air and missile defense network. The rise in potential attack vectors, combined with the growing number of Ukrainian light and heavy missiles (as well as long-range drones), will further strain Moscow’s defenses.

Of course, this does not mean that Ukraine’s future long-range strike campaign will necessarily be overwhelmingly successful. Much will depend on Ukrainian intelligence to identify and exploit suitable attack vectors in a timely manner. The question, however, is less whether these new systems will penetrate Russian defenses than how many will get through. Once a point is reached at which Ukraine is able to deploy a substantial number of heavy missile systems sustainably, its long-range strike campaign will intensify — likely to the detriment of Russia’s critical oil and gas infrastructure, which is already under sustained pressure from Ukraine’s existing capabilities.

To reach that point, foreign funding for Ukraine’s missile industry is becoming increasingly important. Germany has already provided 400 million euros to support Ukraine’s long-range strike capabilities, though this assistance was limited to long-range drones and mini-cruise missiles (at least publicly). Future financing by Germany and other European states could, and arguably should, extend to heavier missile systems like the Flamingo, which is capable of substituting for Western cruise missiles that are either withheld (e.g., Taurus) or no longer supplied due to depleted stocks (e.g., Storm Shadow/SCALP-EG).