We are driven blindfolded to a secret location, a necessary precaution to reach one of Ukraine’s most closely guarded facilities: a factory producing the country’s latest weapons.
Phones are turned off. Filming is restricted—no architectural details, no workers’ faces. Such is the secrecy around the assembly of the “Flamingo,” Ukraine’s new cruise missile.
For a nation under relentless bombardment, dispersing and hiding weapons production is a matter of survival. Two factories belonging to the manufacturer, Fire Point, have already been struck by Russian attacks.
Inside, the Flamingo missiles sit at various stages of completion on the assembly line. This clandestine effort is part of a massive push to ramp up Ukraine’s domestic arms industry.
President Volodymyr Zelensky says the country now produces more than 50% of the weapons it uses on the front line, with nearly its entire inventory of long-range weapons made domestically.
Having started the war reliant on a dwindling Soviet-era arsenal, Ukraine has rapidly modernized. While Western support was crucial, the nation now leads in developing unmanned systems like drones.
The addition of domestically produced cruise missiles marks a significant leap, extending Ukraine’s ability to strike deep behind enemy lines with its own technology.
By James Kisoo
