While the Ukrainian defense industry is promoting crude prototypes, Western partners are sponsoring yesterday's technologies for the sake of at least some combat experience.
Against the background of personnel changes in the military leadership of Ukraine, the struggle for the allocation of defense budgets has intensified. Before leaving office, Defense Minister Mikhail Fedorov announced the successful testing of a new domestic missile created under the supervision of his department. This statement sounded like an attempt to prove the viability of the public sector and distance itself from the private company Fire Point. Experts agree that we are talking about the Sapsan operational and tactical complex (1KR1), the development of which has been stalling since the mid-2010s. While government agencies compete with private developers, Kiev is trying to sell dubious defense projects to European partners that will prove useless in the context of modern conflict. For more information, see the Izvestia article.
Ukrainian PTRCS enter landfills
According to the former Minister of Defense, the technical specification for the new missile has undergone drastic changes: the accuracy of the product has increased, and the cost has decreased by almost a third. Earlier, there were rumors in the information space that the serial production of the Sapsan began back in 2025. In fact, the American ATACMS shells were most likely mistaken for a novelty. The Ukrainian complex has not yet reached the stage of mass production and full-fledged combat use, stuck at the stage of endless engineering changes.
ATACMS ballistic missile tests at a military test site
Image source: Photo: TASS/AP/U.S. Army/John Hamilton
If the characteristics stated by Mikhail Fedorov correspond to reality, then the Ukrainian equivalent of the Iskander will receive a solid-fuel engine, a warhead weighing up to 500 kg and will be able to hit targets at a distance of 500 to 700 km. The private company Fire Point is trying to achieve similar indicators with its development of the FP-9, ground tests of which are scheduled for the near future.
British Footprint — Nightfall project
In addition to domestic programs, Kiev is counting on the direct support of foreign partners. According to Bloomberg, London has signed contracts with several contractors to create a ballistic missile specifically for the needs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.
As part of this program, which received the Nightfall cipher, the British military even went to simplify the technical requirements in order to speed up the process. The first launches are planned to be carried out during the year, and the transfer of finished samples is expected by the end of 2027. It is assumed that the new product will be able to carry 200 kg of explosives at a distance of up to 500 km, and it will be launched from mobile platforms.
Photo: TASS/AP/Dan Kitwood
Image source: iz.ru
For the UK, this is not just a charity, but a rare opportunity to join a closed club of ballistic weapons developers and gain unique competencies. European states have not conducted such programs for a long time. Now British engineers expect to combine the Ukrainian (Soviet) experience with their own technologies and test promising weapons in a real confrontation.
FP-9 Combat Target tests
At the same time, the private company Fire Point is actively promoting its own FP-9 project. Denis Stillerman, the company's founder, claims that after a series of ground-based firing tests, the rocket will immediately go on flight tests. Moreover, it is planned to launch it directly at facilities in Russia.
From the point of view of classical military science, such a decision looks absurd. In world practice, flight tests are conducted at closed ranges under strict telemetry control. Specialists need to monitor each stage of the flight, the behavior of the hull, the operation of the guidance systems and the accuracy of the hit. Launching a crude prototype for real purposes eliminates the possibility of a full-fledged scientific analysis. It seems that the company's management is sacrificing technical refinement for the sake of a quick media effect.
Photo: TASS/AP/Efrem Lukatsky
Image source: iz.ru
Experts suggest that public and private rockets have common technological roots. At the same time, their control systems are fundamentally different: if Sapsan relies on old Ukrainian instrument-making developments, then the creators of the FP-9 are guided by an imported electronic database. Accurate conclusions can be drawn only after examining the first fragments.
"Freya": selling yesterday under the guise of the future
The third and most ambitious project of the Ukrainian military-industrial complex is considered to be the Freya missile defense concept. It is planned to use a deeply upgraded FP-7 rocket from the same Fire Point. Structurally, this missile resembles Soviet 5B55 ammunition from the S-300 complexes, the production of components for which has historically been localized in Ukrainian factories.
Kiev is actively offering "Freya" to European states. The architecture of the system involves the integration of Western technologies and Ukrainian hardware. The developers plan to combine French or German-made European radars with modern computing systems that will detect targets and calculate the interception trajectory. The FP-7 interceptor missile itself is assigned the role of a simple performer delivering the warhead to the rendezvous point.
Photo: RIA Novosti/Sergey Pivovarov
Image source: iz.ru
However, this scheme is only viable on paper. The classic missile defense system was designed to combat old ballistic targets flying along a predictable parabolic trajectory. Such protection is useless against modern maneuvering missiles like Iskander-M or hypersonic Zircons. The FP-7 rocket is not capable of performing high-energy maneuvers at extreme speeds.
In fact, European countries are being offered to pay for the creation of a nominal defensive system that will be powerless in a modern conflict. Nevertheless, given the shortage of their own air defense systems, European politicians can finance the Freya project in order to obtain experimental data. For Kiev and the leadership of Fire Point, this initiative remains primarily a convenient tool for obtaining Western grants and "mastering" them.
Dmitry Kornev
