Mired in controversy, Ukraine's Flamingo missile maker steps into the limelight

Fire Point, a Ukrainian weapons startup as famous as it is mired in controversy, has recently gone on a press tour to quell skepticism over its history, ownership and effectiveness.

The firm did not exist prior to Russia's full-scale invasion and has in the interval become the biggest recipient of the Ukrainian Defense Ministry's budget for drones, including from Western allies like Denmark and Germany. Its Flamingo cruise missile has likewise been saddled with the hopes for Ukraine's long-range strike program.

The firm's astronomical rise has drawn suspicion of political connections. Particularly, around its alleged links to Timur Mindich, a businessman and a longtime associate of President Volodymyr Zelensky's. Mindich was recently charged for a massive corruption scheme that allegedly stole $100 million from Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The company’s chief technology officer, Iryna Terekh, director Yehor Skalyha and chief constructor Denys Shtilierman took the stage at an event in Kyiv on Nov. 21 to field questions about their origins and arsenal.

The event took place as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky gave a grim speech on a deteriorating situation in light of a forced peace deal from the United States and President Donald Trump’s administration. Given Zelensky's touting of Fire Point internationally and Western money and political privileges that have fuelled the firm, Ukraine's reputation abroad is now tied to the fate of its star missile maker.

“I’m sorry, I’m very nervous in front of cameras,” joked Skalyha, who spent decades in Ukraine’s film industry. “I’ve always been on that side of the cameras.”

Fire Point’s history has been dogged by its secrecy despite its massive growth. Terekh was the first among Fire Point leadership to step out into the public sphere, as the firm began a press campaign before European audiences this summer.

Shtilierman had been a particularly backstage figure, with his name first publicized in connection to the firm in a Kyiv Independent story from August. After that, Shtilierman began appearing in the press, initially as "сhief сonstructor," and ultimately as a “co-owner” of Fire Point.

Despite Shtillierman saying he was a co-founder of Fire Point, Skalyha was listed as the sole official owner of the company until recently. On Nov. 18, three days before the Fire Point event, Shtillierman acquired 97.5% of Fire Point, leaving Skalyha with 2.5%, according to Ukrainian company registry.

Members of Ukraine’s General Staff attended Fire Point's event in order to praise the company. General Staff spokesperson Dmytro Lykhoviy gave a speech touting figures that showed Fire Point’s long-range drones as 51% of Ukraine’s total deep-strike drones used, responsible for 59% of its successful strikes.

Lykhoviy’s data even put Fire Point’s overall success per drone at 52% — an astronomical figure.

“I will not name the damage figures for Russia's economy caused by drones from a specific company or deep strike, because there are different methodologies for calculating these losses, but I will say first and foremost that these losses are measured in billions of dollars and they significantly exceed the amount invested in the production and supply of the drone fleet for these attacks,” Lykhoviy said.

Four soldiers from units that specialize in deep-strike drone strikes subsequently narrated their historic usage of Fire Point's long-range FP-1 drone, which in some cases dated back two years. The panel of soldiers vouched for Fire Point’s drones, specifically the FP-1 and the mid-strike version, FP-2, which carries more explosives but flies shorter distances.

Fire Point’s leadership touted the recent strikes on Russia’s Shahed-type drone warehouses and launch pads at the Donetsk Airport as one of its recent successes. They tallied a total of 64 major successful strikes on targets ranging from Russian oil and gas refineries to major radar systems.

As to the firm’s much-vaunted Flamingo missile, callsign “Lynch” of the Unmanned Systems Forces, said “right now we say that it’s an experimental weapon, with great announced tactical-technical characteristics.”

“I’m at every launch,” said Skalyha. “And I say to you, what needs to happen now is simply to work out the tactics and usage of this device. So there are definite difficulties, but there’s also victory.”

The firm’s massive growth since its founding in 2023 has drawn global scrutiny. In August, Fire Point was touting 2,200 employees. At the recent event, they claimed 3,500.

“We never borrowed any money,” said Shtilierman. “It was all our own funding.”

“It just so happened that I was a wealthy person long before the war,” he said when asked where the money was coming from. “And that’s it. So were Yehor (Skalyha) and Iryna (Terekh).”

The firm continued denying ownership by Mindich or anyone aside from Skalyha and Shtilierman themselves, though the latter said that Mindich approached the firm early after its creation to buy a 50% stake for "tens of millions of dollars."

However, Shtilierman said that a deal to sell an equity stake in Fire Point to a national sovereign fund was in the works and that he hoped for it to be signed “next week.”

Earlier in November, Ukrainska Pravda reported that the firm was looking to sell a stake to an unnamed buyer from Saudi Arabia.

An investigation by Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau, or NABU, hung heavy over the proceedings — indeed, the team pulled up a filing from the NABU showing that the investigation concerned five other drone companies in addition to Fire Point.

Shtilierman addressed recent audio clips released by NABU as part of its investigation into an alleged ring that laundered $100 million and got kickbacks from energy contracts. Shtillierman comes up in the tapes, mentioned as someone visiting the alleged ring’s headquarters.

At the event, Shtillierman explained it by saying he was using the services of Mykhailo Tsukerman, brother of Oleksandr Tsukerman, one of the central figures in the alleged scheme, as his “personal banker.”

The missile constructor claimed that, suspicious of the banking system, he entrusted Mykhailo Tsukerman with all of his assets at the start of the full-scale invasion. Mykhaylo Tsukerman's brother, Oleksandr, is a central financier in the energy prosecution, and is reportedly facing a money laundering investigation in the U.S. Both brothers are longtime associates of Mindich.

Further complicating these ties is that Ihor Fursenko, the alleged money runner for the scheme, was on paper a Fire Point employee, a status that allowed him to cross the Ukrainian border freely and escape mobilization. "No-show jobs" are often a form of graft, with the term even ending up as the title for a Sopranos episode.

Shtilierman said he knows Fursenko and particularly thanked him for evacuating his now ex-wife from Moscow months ago. In a Nov. 18 interview with Radio NV, Shtilierman said that his wife left Russia 28 hours after the Kyiv Independent article first named him at the end of August. Ukraine's anti-corruption organization had, however, previously said in court that their records indicated that Fursenko formally worked at Fire Point at least as early as March.

Shtilierman responded to prior reports that he had Russian citizenship, which he said he received because he was studying in Moscow when the USSR fell apart. In his account, Russia took away his citizenship in 2016 because he “took part in Maidan and worked in charity here.” The Kyiv Independent couldn’t independently verify it.

At the same time, Shtilierman accused his competitors of having ties with Russia. Addressing the firm’s ability to speed-run its weapons systems to beat out Ukraine’s historic heavy hitters of the defense industry, Shtilierman implied that those other firms retain ties to Russia that keep them from delivering.

“All of our super-sized government enterprises — since the time of the Soviet Union they have been subordinate to Moscow and to the Muscovite KGB. They were not obeying Ukraine. Therefore, what’s happening in there now, nobody knows.”