Disarmed by its Western "friends", Ukraine works hard to rearm

From the Independent:

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

As Europe and the US ponder over what arms to send to help the war against Russia, Ukraine is forging ahead with homegrown missiles and drones made from carbon printers and lawnmower engines. World affairs editor Sam Kiley reports from Kyiv

08 November 2025 

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...

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...

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 Terekh, 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.

“And that is what happened to our company. We didn’t care that we meet Nato standards.

“We only cared that our weapons would be effective on the front line, not on some paperwork. We could, as a result, make a very effective weapon.”

As well as Flamingos, Fire Point also produces the shorter-range Shahed-style drones FP1 and FP2. The former have been used frequently to attack Russia as far as Moscow.

The latter, which carry a payload of 150kg, have been mistaken for long-range American missiles because of their explosive power.

Their value lies in that they’re cheap and fast to make. It takes a couple of hours to make the wings and 30 minutes to fashion the fuselage from a mix of plastic and carbon.

The lightweight machines are glued together with carbon printers, use lawnmower engines and rely on open source navigation systems...

For Ukraine, price competition is important. The European Union, Kyiv biggest backer, is an economic bloc at least nine times the size of Russia’s economy with four times its spending power. Ukraine’s allies can outspend Russia, if they choose to, but so far they have not...

Russia has had years to prepare for its invasion of Ukraine. With hindsight, it was aided by the collapse of Ukraine’s arms industry after its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Back then, Ukraine had the third-largest nuclear weapons stockpile. It produced 30 per cent of the Soviet Union’s weapons.

Ukraine produced some of the Kremlin’s most terrifying weapons –intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) like the SS-18 “Satan”...

But in 1994, Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nukes in return for an agreement from the US, UK, and Russia to guarantee its security.

Later, China and France signed up, but only Ukraine believed the memos were worth the ink spent on setting them down...

Ukraine’s weapons industry is now worth only $1bn, but it is growing very fast...

“We all have to grow up and build our own security with our own hands,” says Terekh."