Kathrine Frich
The company is already looking past the 300-kilometer mark.
Relying on outside help always comes with strings attached.
For years, factories across Eastern Europe have worked around the clock to build what their soldiers need from scratch.
Now that push for self-reliance has just crossed a major line.
Crossing the border
Ukrainian defense maker Fire Point has fired a homegrown tactical ballistic missile at targets inside Russia for the very first time, UNITED24 Media reported. A ballistic missile is a high-speed rocket that arches high into the sky before dropping steeply onto its target.
On October 12, company boss Iryna Terekh confirmed the cross-border attack to the Ukrainian news outlet TSN. According to UNITED24 Media, the weapon used in the strike is called the FP-7 and can hit targets up to 300 kilometers away.
For years, Kyiv had to ask Western allies for permission before firing donated rockets across the border. Building weapons at home changes that rulebook completely.
Two years of work
Getting the FP-7 ready for battle took serious time and money. In a September interview cited by UNITED24 Media, Terekh explained that her team spent roughly two years and about $200 million to design the rocket and set up factory lines.
By September, the weapon had already entered its final military approval stage, which defense officials call codification. Strict global export rules made buying foreign missile parts nearly impossible, UNITED24 Media reported.
So local engineers designed and built the critical pieces themselves right in Ukraine. That hands-on approach kept the project moving forward despite wartime shortages.
Reaching even further
The company is already looking past the 300-kilometer mark. “We are working on an extended-range version, which will also appear this year,” Terekh noted, according to TSN and UNITED24 Media.
Alongside that upgrade, Fire Point is racing to finish testing a much larger rocket called the FP-9 by late 2026.
UNITED24 Media reported that this heavier model is built to fly up to 850 kilometers, putting distant Russian targets like Moscow within reach.
