Is Ukraine quietly changing how ballistic missiles are designed and manufactured?
That may be the larger question behind recent comments from Ukrainian defense entrepreneur Denys Shtilerman, co-founder and chief designer of Fire Point. The technical details of Ukraine's emerging ballistic missile work remain limited in public sources, and some of Fire Point's claims should be treated as company claims until independently verified. But the philosophy behind those claims is worth taking seriously.
Ukraine appears to be emphasizing something less glamorous than peak missile performance, but potentially more decisive in a long war: manufacturability.
Part 1: A new philosophy of missile warfare
For decades, the world's major military powers shared a common philosophy when designing ballistic missiles: build the most capable weapon possible.
Engineers competed to achieve greater speed, longer range, higher accuracy, improved countermeasures, and increasingly sophisticated guidance systems. Every new generation of missiles became more technologically impressive, and usually more expensive. Development cycles stretched into years, while production often remained limited because each missile represented an enormous investment in engineering, specialized labor, and advanced manufacturing.
That philosophy dominated military planning throughout the Cold War and continued well into the 21st century. Whether examining American precision-guided weapons, Russian ballistic missiles, or China's growing missile arsenal, success was often measured by technical superiority.
But the war in Ukraine may be rewriting that playbook.
Recent public comments from Shtilerman suggest that Ukraine's emerging missile strategy is taking a different direction. Rather than competing to build the world's most technologically complex ballistic missile, Ukraine appears to be asking a simpler industrial question: can a missile be manufactured rapidly, at lower cost, and in quantities large enough to sustain years of high-intensity conflict?
If accurate, that represents more than an engineering decision. It reflects a shift in military thinking.
The Fire Point signal
Fire Point is already known for long-range strike drones and the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile. Associated Press reporting described Fire Point as one of the Ukrainian firms driving the country's effort to build long-range drones and missiles for strikes deep inside Russia. Defense News reported in June 2026 that Fire Point-produced drones account for a large share of Ukraine's strikes inside Russia, citing Shtilerman's comments at Eurosatory.
The new question is ballistic missiles. UNITED24 Media reported that Shtilerman expects Fire Point to field a mass-produced Ukrainian ballistic missile and described a production philosophy built around rapid expansion, limited specialized labor, and scale. He also said the company's Flamingo cruise missiles were already in serial production.
The article's most striking line was not a claim about range or speed. It was a claim about production tempo. Shtilerman said the missiles would come out "like hotcakes." That is not the vocabulary of traditional defense procurement. It is the vocabulary of industrial scaling.
There are reasons for caution. Fire Point has faced public scrutiny and investigation in Ukraine over parts of its defense-contracting history, though the company denies wrongdoing and no charges against the company or founders have been reported in the sources reviewed here. Production claims from any wartime defense firm should be read with that context. Still, the underlying direction is consistent with what Ukraine has already done in drones: build, test, simplify, scale, and adapt quickly.
The lessons of a long war
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion in 2022, many analysts expected the conflict to be decided within weeks or months. Instead, it has evolved into one of the largest industrial wars since the Second World War.
The conflict has demonstrated that modern warfare is not determined only by which nation possesses the most advanced weapons. Increasingly, it depends on which nation can continue producing those weapons after years of combat.
Every missile launched must eventually be replaced. Every interceptor fired from an air-defense battery must be manufactured again. Every drone destroyed over the battlefield represents another airframe, motor, flight controller, radio, camera, and battery that must return to the production line.
This has transformed manufacturing capacity into a strategic weapon.
Military planners have always understood logistics, but the Ukraine war has elevated industrial production itself to the center of battlefield strategy. Factories, machine tools, skilled workers, electronics suppliers, testing ranges, software teams, and supply chains have become almost as valuable as the weapons they produce.
For Ukraine, whose industrial infrastructure has been repeatedly targeted by Russian missile strikes, this creates a difficult challenge. Building a small number of exceptionally sophisticated missiles may not be enough if production cannot keep pace with operational demand.
Instead, Ukraine appears to be embracing a philosophy more familiar to commercial manufacturing than traditional defense procurement: simplify the design, reduce production bottlenecks, standardize components where practical, disperse production, and manufacture at scale.
The rise of the good-enough weapon
At first glance, intentionally simplifying a missile may sound like lowering standards.
In reality, engineers often face the opposite problem. Every additional feature increases complexity. More advanced sensors require additional electronics. Higher precision can demand tighter manufacturing tolerances. Specialized materials increase costs while slowing production. Complex guidance and communications systems require more software, more testing, and more highly trained engineers.
These improvements can make a missile more capable.
They also make it more difficult to build.
Ukraine's apparent strategy recognizes a reality that many industries learned decades ago: a product that is 95 percent as capable but can be manufactured five times faster may provide far greater real-world value than a technically perfect design that leaves the factory in small numbers.
That does not mean accuracy, survivability, safety, or reliability stop mattering. A missile that cannot reach its target, survives poorly, or fails too often is not useful merely because it is cheap. The point is tradeoff discipline. In a long war, a design feature has to justify not only what it adds in performance, but what it costs in production time, supply-chain fragility, and replaceability.
From drone factories to missile factories
The clearest example comes from Ukraine's expansion of unmanned aerial vehicle production.
At the beginning of the invasion, drones were often treated as specialized military equipment. Today they have become consumable battlefield tools. Thousands are lost every month. Instead of attempting to build the most sophisticated drone imaginable, Ukrainian manufacturers increasingly focused on designs that were inexpensive, modular, easy to repair, and quick to assemble.
Commercial electronics replaced custom hardware wherever practical. Components from multiple suppliers reduced dependence on any single source. Battlefield units fed lessons back to manufacturers quickly. Software, procurement, training, and repair became part of the same cycle.
That approach helped turn FPV drones from experimental tools into one of the defining weapons of the war. It also explains why we have treated drone-related articles as part of a broader business and industrial story on this site, from remote FPV operators and gaming-like drone skills to Ukraine's broader strike campaign against Russian refineries, depots, and logistics infrastructure.
Shtilerman's comments suggest that Ukraine hopes to apply a similar manufacturing mindset to missiles. Ballistic missiles will never be inexpensive in the way small drones are. Rocket propulsion, thermal stresses, flight stability, navigation, and structural integrity require serious engineering and testing. But the philosophical similarity is clear.
Instead of asking, "How can we build the world's most advanced missile?" the question becomes: "How can we build enough missiles to influence the outcome of a long war?"
A different kind of arms race
This shift carries implications beyond Ukraine.
For generations, military competition focused primarily on performance. Nations compared maximum range, speed, payload, radar signatures, and accuracy. Those characteristics remain important. A weapon still has to work.
But another competition is emerging beneath the surface.
Which country can manufacture precision weapons the fastest? Which nation can sustain production despite sanctions, supply-chain disruptions, and attacks on factories? Which defense industry can redesign products to reduce dependence on scarce components? Which companies can train workers quickly without sacrificing quality control?
And perhaps most importantly: can simplicity become a strategic advantage?
These questions may define the next generation of missile development as much as incremental improvements in speed or range.
What to watch next
The important signs will not only be test videos or official adoption announcements. Watch for production rates, supplier networks, launch-platform practicality, whether components are domestic or import-dependent, and whether Ukraine can keep producing even as Russia targets factories and energy infrastructure.
Also watch the language. If Ukrainian officials and companies talk less about a perfect missile and more about production packages, worker training, modularity, foreign manufacturing partnerships, and monthly output, that is the real story.
The future of missile warfare may not belong to the country that builds the single most impressive missile. It may belong to the country that can build enough effective missiles to keep fighting after the first wave is gone.
Part 2: Inside a modern ballistic missile
To understand why Ukraine appears to be emphasizing simplicity and mass production, it helps to understand what a modern ballistic missile actually is, and what it is not.
Hollywood often portrays ballistic missiles as highly intelligent machines that continuously steer themselves toward a target. In reality, most ballistic missiles spend much of their flight doing something more basic.
They fly according to physics.
After launch, the missile's rocket motor accelerates it to very high speed before shutting down. From that point forward, the missile follows a ballistic trajectory, somewhat like a baseball thrown into the air, although at vastly greater speed, altitude, and consequence. Gravity, momentum, and aerodynamic forces determine much of the flight.
The engineering challenge is ensuring that the missile reaches the right conditions before entering this mostly unpowered phase of flight.
At a broad level, that challenge depends on four major systems: propulsion, guidance and navigation, flight control, and warhead delivery. Each creates opportunities to simplify manufacturing without necessarily sacrificing battlefield usefulness.
Solid-fuel rocket motors
One of the biggest changes in missile engineering has been the widespread adoption of solid-fuel rocket motors.
Early ballistic missiles often relied on liquid fuel, which required pumps, plumbing, valves, and fueling operations before launch. Those systems could be powerful, but they were also complex, maintenance-intensive, and vulnerable during preparation.
Solid-fuel motors changed that equation. The propellant is cast inside the motor casing, allowing the missile to be stored in a ready-to-launch condition. Once ignited, the fuel burns in a controlled pattern until it is exhausted.
This offers several advantages: faster launch times, reduced maintenance, greater reliability, simpler logistics, and improved survivability for mobile launch units.
For Ukraine's apparent strategy, solid-fuel motors also fit standardized manufacturing better than many liquid-fuel systems. Once production methods are established, factories can repeatedly manufacture motor sections without the same launch-preparation burden associated with liquid-fueled missiles.
That does not make production easy. Casting large, defect-free solid propellant requires precision and quality control. Small defects can affect burn behavior or cause failure. But compared with fielding liquid-fueled missiles, solid fuel is generally a better fit for a force seeking rapid deployment and sustained production.
Guidance systems: teaching a missile where it is
A missile cannot reach its target if it does not know where it is.
The core of that capability is the inertial navigation system, or INS. An INS operates independently of satellites or radio signals. Using gyroscopes and accelerometers, it measures the missile's movement from the moment it leaves the launcher.
Think of it as an extremely accurate dead-reckoning system. By calculating changes in speed and direction, the onboard computer estimates the missile's position throughout flight.
The major advantage is resilience. Because an INS does not rely on external signals, it cannot be disabled simply by interrupting satellite communications.
The disadvantage is drift. Tiny measurement errors accumulate over time. Over long distances, even small inaccuracies can gradually shift the predicted position.
GNSS: improving accuracy
To reduce accumulated error, many modern missiles supplement inertial navigation with Global Navigation Satellite System signals, or GNSS.
The American GPS constellation is the best known, but other systems include Europe's Galileo, Russia's GLONASS, and China's BeiDou.
Satellite updates allow a missile to periodically correct its estimated position, improving accuracy. But satellite navigation introduces vulnerabilities. Electronic warfare has become one of the defining features of the conflict in Ukraine, and both sides routinely attempt to jam, spoof, or interfere with navigation signals.
As a result, modern designers often treat satellite navigation as an enhancement rather than the foundation. A robust inertial navigation system remains the backbone.
Flight computers have become smaller and smarter
Another quiet revolution has taken place inside the missile itself.
Decades ago, missile guidance required specialized military computers that were expensive and difficult to manufacture. Today's electronics are dramatically more capable. Modern processors, miniature sensors, and advanced software allow sophisticated guidance logic to run on compact hardware using modest electrical power.
This opens the door to a manufacturing philosophy built around modular electronics and standardized computing platforms. Critical military components still need environmental hardening, testing, security, and quality control. But advances in commercial electronics have changed what is possible.
For manufacturers pursuing large-scale production, reducing the number of unique electronic assemblies can simplify supply chains and accelerate assembly.
Flight control without needless complexity
Knowing where the missile is represents only part of the challenge. The missile must also be able to adjust its flight path.
This is the role of the flight control system. Small aerodynamic control surfaces, or in some designs other control mechanisms, allow the onboard computer to make corrections during flight.
Contrary to popular imagination, many of these corrections are small. The goal is not dramatic maneuvering. It is stable, predictable flight.
Simple, reliable control systems are often preferable to highly complex mechanisms that increase manufacturing time, maintenance burden, and failure risk. For a country emphasizing scalable production, reliability can matter more than elegance.
Accuracy and circular error probable
When analysts discuss missile performance, one technical term appears repeatedly: circular error probable, or CEP.
CEP estimates the radius within which half of a missile's impacts are expected to land. A smaller CEP indicates greater precision.
Improving CEP has traditionally been one of the primary goals of missile designers. But reducing CEP often requires better sensors, more sophisticated software, tighter manufacturing tolerances, and additional testing. Each improvement can raise cost and slow production.
That creates an engineering tradeoff. If Ukraine's strategy truly prioritizes manufacturing speed and affordability, designers may accept a somewhat larger CEP if doing so dramatically increases production capacity.
For many military targets, absolute pinpoint precision is not always necessary. Fuel depots, logistics hubs, railway junctions, command facilities, aircraft shelters, and industrial sites can be vulnerable to consistent accuracy within an acceptable margin. The question is not whether precision matters. It is how much additional precision is worth when the alternative is far greater production volume.
Designing for manufacturability
One phrase rarely appears in newspaper articles but dominates industrial engineering: design for manufacturability, or DFM.
Rather than asking only whether a product can be built, DFM asks whether it can be built efficiently, consistently, and at scale.
This philosophy influences nearly every engineering decision. Can two parts be combined into one? Can a component be produced using automated machining? Can different variants share common parts? Can assembly require fewer specialized technicians? Can inspections be simplified without reducing safety?
These questions may seem mundane compared with hypersonic speeds or advanced warheads. Yet they often determine whether a factory produces dozens of weapons each year or far more.
If Shtilerman's comments accurately reflect Ukraine's design philosophy, DFM may be one of the most important concepts guiding the country's next generation of missile development.
Engineering for a long war
Traditional defense procurement often rewarded maximum technical performance regardless of production speed. Ukraine's experience suggests a different priority.
The country is fighting a prolonged, high-intensity conflict against a larger opponent with greater industrial capacity. In that environment, engineers must optimize not only for battlefield performance but also for production resilience.
A missile that can be manufactured quickly, upgraded continuously, and assembled from available components may ultimately prove more valuable than one that achieves marginally better performance at several times the cost.
That philosophy, balancing capability with manufacturability, could become one of the defining lessons of the war. If it does, missile engineers and defense planners around the world will study Ukraine's approach long after the conflict ends.
Coming in Part 3: We will examine the economics behind missile production, compare Ukraine's approach with Russia's missile industry, and explore why manufacturing capacity, not just engineering excellence, may determine military success in future wars.
Sources and further reading: UNITED24 Media on Shtilerman's mass-production comments; Defense News on Fire Point moving into ballistic missile defense; Associated Press on Fire Point's drones and missile work; Business Plexus coverage of Ukraine's strikes on Russian oil infrastructure and remote FPV drone operations.