Fire Point ballistic missile interceptor development, Digi Mart USA News: Ukrainian defense company Fire Point has grown to 7,000 employees in a short time and is mass-producing drones and cruise missiles already. The company, which cooperates with Kongsberg Defence & Aerospace, is now working intensively on defense against Russian ballistic missiles.
In an interview with Panorama Nyheter, chief executive Iryna Terekh explained how a private company operating during an ongoing war has been able to cut timelines that normally take decades in the defense industry. She said the company did not have the luxury of spending time on extensive bureaucracy and instead moved directly toward a full package of products.
According to Terekh, this approach helped the company move at record speed to build its own ballistic missiles, from zero to the first launch on the battlefield within two years. She cautioned, however, against assuming that airspace could be closed to threats immediately.
“From the first success you achieve, you must ensure that you can deliver this at scale and with a predictable volume, regardless of circumstances,” she told Panorama Nyheter.
Asked about defense against ballistic missiles, Terekh said the most honest answer is that the company expects its first success in 2027. She said Ukraine would begin to see the practical benefit by the end of 2027, with the effect truly felt in 2028 and later.
Terekh credited the company’s success to direct communication with frontline units to obtain immediate lessons from combat. She acknowledged that this way of thinking partly departs from existing security thinking in traditional military production, and said it sometimes appears uncomfortable to people from the older Ukrainian military when they see the young engineers in hooded sweatshirts.
“But this works, and it has produced results, that is what matters most,” she said.
The article also reports that Terekh praised cooperation with Norway and the Nordic countries, but said Western countries must adapt to the realities of war rather than cling to peacetime standards and certification requirements. “If you invest so heavily in trying to reduce risk in the war, to make it completely safe to work during the war, you may end up, overall, in a much less safe situation,” she told Panorama.
