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Ukraine’s New Pink Flamingo Missiles Strike Fear In Russia

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Ukraine’s New Pink Flamingo Missiles Strike Fear In Russia


“A factory error left early FP-5 cruise missiles pink, leading Fire Point to nickname it “Flamingo” — a name that stuck.” The company’s director, Iryna Terekh, an architect before the war, liked the color though, so she kept it for the nose. “Woman’s touch in missiles,” said Terekh.

When she was hired, the goal was to produce 30 of them a month. Ukraine claims to be producing up to 100 per day. And somehow managing to do all that for just $55,000 a piece. It has many wondering how Ukraine can do all this for practically nothing when similarly specced US-made Tomahawk missiles cost over $2 million.

Source: Politico

KYIV — While Ukraine’s allies twist themselves into knots over how to provide it with security guarantees, Kyiv is moving ahead with its own way of keeping Russia at bay — a new cruise missile able to hit all of European Russia carrying a massive warhead weighing more than a ton.

That’s the Flamingo FP-5 missile, developed by Ukraine’s Fire Point defense company — a fast-growing producer of the combat drones that have become a key weapon in the war against Russia.

“We did not want to go public with this one, but it seems to be the right time. Flamingo is the long-range cruise missile that can carry a 1,150 kilogram warhead and fly into Russia for 3,000 kilometers,” Iryna Terekh, the company’s CEO and technical director, told POLITICO in an interview from her office.

“We came up with it pretty fast. It took less than nine months to develop it from an idea to its first successful tests on the battlefield. I will not tell you about its exact speed, but I can say it’s faster than all the other missiles we currently have,” Terekh said, adding: “It is completely Ukrainian-made.”

And more on that unusual name.

The unusual name and the missile’s original color — a bright pink tip where the warhead is housed — were an internal company joke on the unheralded role of women in the male-dominated world of weapons and war.

“Our first missiles were pink; they passed all the tests pink, but then we had to change color because of military camouflage requirements. But the woman in charge of production is still there. Women’s touch in missiles,” Terekh said.

The Flamingo could pose some real problems for macho Russian leader Vladimir Putin.

“I would say there is some sort of big dick energy moment. You don’t need a scary name for a missile that can fly 3,000 kilometers,” Terekh said of the missile’s claimed range. “The main goal is for a missile to be effective.”

Whatever its original color and name, a missile with that kind of punch is already being noticed by Moscow.

The cost and the specifications are, frankly, hard to believe.

When Terekh — an architect — was hired in the summer of 2023, she was given a goal of producing 30 drones per month. Now the company makes roughly 100 per day, at a cost of $55,000 apiece.

The FP-1 looks more like a hastily made science project than something that would roll off the production lines of the world’s biggest defense contractors. “We removed unneeded, flashy glittery stuff,” she said.

Pink added for visualization purposes.





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