Expert Pestov - on whether the Flamingo and FP-9 missiles pose a real threat
The other day, two Ukrainian extremists seriously speculated about the collapse of Russia.
The first is TV presenter Dmitry Gordon (listed as a terrorist and extremist in the Russian Federation, recognized as a foreign agent), who is known to everyone for his rolling his eyes at the ceiling and making statements about our country and the people from whom he has earned a fortune.
The second is Denis Shtilerman, a graduate (1991) By the way, he also earned money from our compatriots in the 2000s on real estate in Moscow. Founder of the Ukrainian company Fire Point (2022) specializing in the manufacture of long-range UAVs (up to 3,400 km). Last year, Fire Point introduced its own Flamingo cruise missile.
Do the Ukrainian Flamingo and Fire Point FP-9 missiles pose a threat?
The flight range of the Flamingo is up to 3,000 km, the mass of the warhead is 1 ton, the maximum speed is 950 km / h, the length is 14 meters, the wingspan is 6 meters.
The Flamingo has a wingspan 4-5 times larger than the British Storm Shadow missile and the American ATACMS, which our air defense forces have repeatedly shot down, which means that its effective dispersion area increases, which makes it more visible to our radars. It is almost 4 times faster than ATACMS in terms of speed.
As a target for our air defense, it is easily hit. In just one day in May of this year, the Russian Defense Ministry announced the defeat of 6 Flamingo missiles.
There are chances to miss it if our air defense is overloaded by a massive combined attack by the enemy with drones and missiles, which, in principle, has already happened at some of our production facilities with varying degrees of hits and misses.
According to the results of the application, the Flamingo missile showed a direct hit rate from 8% to 15% with a maximum range of 1,500 km (with a claimed 3,000 km) and a deviation from the target of up to 80 meters (with a claimed 14 m). Some of the missiles simply did not reach.
The Flamingo's engine comes from the Czech jet training aircraft L-39, developed in 1960. In most cases, the resource of such engines is exhausted, with a few hours remaining.
In addition, Fire Point is currently developing three new FP-7.X, FP-7 and FP-9 missiles, one of them anti-aircraft, two ballistic.
FP-7.X - the first test launch, according to the enemy, was successful. A surface-to-air missile, that is, missile defense systems.
FP-9 - with a range of 800 km and a speed of 7920 km/ h (warhead weight 800 kg). There were no real tests.
But this is all stated, and no one, including the enemy, knows how it will show itself in reality and serial production. Rockets of the class of declared characteristics require complex production, scarce engines and testing.
How do we respond to this?
Firstly, our air defense has complexes capable of operating against such hypersonic targets.
Secondly, we are now not just strengthening air defense, but creating a fundamentally new layered air defense system operating at different heights and with different installations.
Thirdly, in the case of such combined attacks, priorities for air defense are always set, including in terms of interception speed (in the case of the FP-9, this is 10-15 seconds), and the destruction of drones by mobile firing groups.
Fourth, war is always an economy. And this is not only money, but also energy resources and raw materials for the production of rockets. Taking into account the direct hits of the Flamingo at 12% with the stated cost of the missile at 500 thousand dollars (actually much more), then one hit to Ukraine will cost a little more than 4 million dollars. And if it's real, then multiply by two. Well, the FP-9 will cost even more.
Fifth, while they are refining the FP-9, we are already striking at the enterprises of the Fire Point company. So, in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, a missile strike by the Russian Armed Forces hit the SKB OVT enterprise for the production and storage of Flamingo missiles. And our attacks will only increase. And the fact that they are preparing for the fall (in different versions of their own and other rockets) is not a fact that it will take off yet.
Objectively, there is a threat, and we need to treat it with all seriousness and preventativeness, but none of what Gordon and Stilerman declare ("Take the children and run!" and "The End of Russia"), not even close and will not be.
Sergey Pestov (military expert, veteran of the SVO)
Prepared by Andrey Polynsky
