Fire Point CEO Iryna Terekh remembers the moment in February when long-range cruise missiles manufactured by her defense technology company struck a Russian arms factory in Votkinsk, nearly 900 miles from Ukraine. The Votkinsk plant manufactures the Kinzhal and Iskander ballistic missiles that Moscow regularly rains down on Kyiv and other cities. Three of Fire Point’s powerful Flamingo missiles hit the plant’s electroplating and stamping facility, and a Russian video captured a giant fireball burning on the horizon.
“We’re finally hitting the archer,” Terekh, a small, slender engineer with dark hair and aviator glasses, tells me with a smile. “That’s much more effective than stopping the arrows. Votkinsk was my first sense that something was really changing.”
The Votkinsk strike was just the beginning. Ukraine has been pounding Russia with long-range weapons—missiles and drones—all spring. After one startling mid-May assault on Moscow, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported intercepting 628 drones over 14 regions, destroying 120 above Moscow. Ukrainian strikes damaged critical infrastructure across Russia, including the Moscow Oil Refinery and a major semiconductor plant, killing three, injuring 18, and causing severe delays at the capital’s main international airport.
Particularly stunning and effective are the now almost daily Ukrainian drone and missile strikes on Russian oil facilities. Kyiv has doubled the tempo of attacks in recent months, boosting the effect with repeated hits on the same refinery—sometimes several in a single week. In late May, Reuters reported the attacks had stopped or scaled back operations at all major fuel refineries in central Russia, cutting 30 percent of Russia’s gasoline output and 25 percent of its diesel fuel production. What Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wryly calls “long-range sanctions” also target Russian pipelines and storage facilities. The campaign has forced the Kremlin to halt gasoline exports and dented the tax revenues Moscow relies on to finance its war machine.
