ANALYSIS: Diehl is Producing the Flamingo in Germany — The First Ukrainian Missile on NATO Soil

When Kyiv Exports Its War to Germany

Just a few years ago, the idea would have seemed like military science fiction: a missile designed in Ukraine, mass-produced on the territory of a NATO member state, integrating the precision technology of a German defense giant. And yet, that is exactly what is taking shape at high speed since the CEO of Diehl Defence, Helmut Rauch, dropped these words to reporters on the sidelines of the ILA Berlin airshow on June 11, 2026: "We are in discussions about how we could work together. I think this could really happen." This isn't a trial balloon; it is a declaration of industrial intent with historic repercussions.

The target: the FP-5 Flamingo, a land-based cruise missile designed by the Ukrainian startup Fire Point, capable of striking at 3,000 kilometers, carrying a 1,150 kg warhead, produced at a rate of nearly 200 units per month in Ukraine. Diehl Defence, manufacturer of the IRIS-T air defense system — the most precious shield provided to Kyiv since the start of the war — is now considering producing this missile in Germany while grafting a cutting-edge seeker onto it, an infrared terminal guidance technology that would turn the Flamingo from a tool of deep mass destruction into a weapon of surgical precision.

A Defining Moment for European Defense

What is happening is not a simple commercial transaction between two arms companies. It is a conceptual break in the industrial architecture of Western defense. For the first time in the history of the Atlantic Alliance, a strategic missile of Ukrainian design would be mass-produced within the borders of a NATO member country. The precedent is colossal. Denmark did authorize Fire Point to produce solid fuel on its territory starting in December 2025, but that involved neither a complete missile nor a fully sovereign European industrial logic. What Berlin is preparing is of a different nature.

The symbolic shift is all the stronger because Ukraine, a recipient of Western weapons since 2022, now finds itself in the position of exporting military technology to its own supporters. This reversal — from beneficiary to supplier — carries a political significance that European capitols have not yet fully measured. The Ukrainian defense industry, forged in the fire of Russian bombardments, is becoming a world-class player.

I must admit that this reversal both fascinates and moves me. For years, we debated arms deliveries to Ukraine as an act of strategic charity. We weighed every missile delivered, we hesitated, we set conditions. And here we are in 2026, with Ukraine delivering its technology to Germany. History, when it accelerates, has a sense of irony that no one truly dares to anticipate.

A Simplified Design That Is Also Its Strength

The FP-5 Flamingo is not a conventional missile in the classic sense. Designed by Fire Point, a Ukrainian defense company founded in 2022, it displays a design philosophy radically different from the major families of Western missiles. Where the American Tomahawk costs about 3.6 million dollars per unit, the Flamingo is manufactured for about 500,000 dollars, a ratio of 1 to 7. This deliberate war economy relies on a simplified architecture: a straight fixed wing rather than a folding one, an AI-25 turbofan engine externally mounted above the fuselage rather than integrated, and satellite and inertial guidance without a TERCOM system comparable to American missiles.

The missile reaches a cruising speed between 650 and 700 km/h, with a peak at 950 km/h. Its takeoff weight is 6,000 kg. It can fly between 20 meters and 10 kilometers in altitude depending on its mission profile, remain airborne for four hours, and be ready for launch in about 20 minutes. Its launcher resembles a commercial truck in transit — giving it precious operational stealth. The stated precision — a circular error probable of about 14 meters — remains sufficient to devastate a warehouse or a military industrial complex.

Already in Combat, Already in History

This missile is not a showroom concept. It has already struck. Known targets include an FSB facility in Crimea, the Skif-M plant involved in the production of Su-34, Su-35, and Su-57 fighters, the Kapustin Yar missile test range, the Kotluban ammunition depot, the Votkinsk machine plant, the Promsintez explosives factory, and the VNIIR-Progress electronics complex in Cheboksary — strikes confirmed on June 10, 2026, over 900 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. President Volodymyr Zelensky personally announced in August 2025 that mass production had begun, calling the Flamingo "our most successful missile."

Production started at about 30 missiles per month in mid-2025, reaching three missiles per day by early 2026. Denys Shtilierman, co-founder and chief designer of Fire Point, told the Financial Times soberly in May 2026: "We just need orders and money." This isn't bluster — it is a call for industrial mobilization that the West is finally beginning to hear.

What strikes me about the Flamingo is the philosophy of total industrial war it embodies. The Ukrainians didn’t try to build the perfect missile — they built the possible, reproducible, scalable missile. In a war of attrition against a Russia that has industrial depth inherited from the USSR, this approach is perhaps the only one that makes sense. And the wisdom of this intuition is finally penetrating the brains in Berlin.

An Arms Giant That Has Already Proved Its Worth

Diehl Defence, based in Überlingen on Lake Constance, is no stranger to current theaters of war. This is the firm that produces the IRIS-T SLM system — the backbone of Ukrainian air defense against Russian attacks since 2022. Every night that Kyiv has survived waves of Russian missiles, it is partly thanks to equipment coming off Diehl's lines. The company is investing 1.5 billion euros to expand its production capacities, has opened a new plant in Nonnweiler (Saarland), and aims for an annual rate of up to 10 IRIS-T systems per year.

What makes Diehl particularly valuable in the Flamingo project is its mastery of infrared seekers. The firm has been producing seeker heads for IRIS-T missiles for decades — including semi-active laser guidance and passive anti-radiation guidance. This is precisely the expertise Helmut Rauch mentioned at the ILA, indicating that Diehl could provide a significantly more advanced seeker than the one currently used by the Flamingo. Cooperation between the two firms is not hypothetical: a technology agreement was already signed in April 2026, the details of which remain confidential but which lay the foundations for joint production.

The Economic and Strategic Logic of German Production

Producing the Flamingo in Germany meets several simultaneous imperatives. First, reducing vulnerability of the production chain to Russian strikes on Ukrainian industrial sites. Second, accessing advanced German industrial processes — certification procedures, long-term support networks, European supply chains, electronic integration capabilities. Finally — and perhaps most importantly — giving Europe a deep-strike instrument independent of Washington's political moods.

Because the geopolitical context demands this reading: US President Donald Trump canceled the planned deployment of an American battalion equipped with Tomahawk missiles in Germany amid friction with Chancellor Friedrich Merz over the conflict in Iran. Berlin finds itself with a gaping capability hole in its long-range conventional deterrence plans. The German Ministry of Defense's four-stage plan calls for low-cost cruise missiles by 2027, high-performance missiles with the UK by 2032, and a hypersonic glider by 2035. The Flamingo — already in production, already in combat — ticks all the boxes for stage 2.

There is something historically delicious in the fact that Germany, a country long accused of chronic military lukewarmness, is looking to the Ukrainian arsenal for its answer to American abandonment. Merz has made rearmament a central axis of his policy. But without the Ukrainians, without their industrial genius for war, Berlin would still be waiting for the Tomahawks that Trump refused. Transatlantic dependence was showing its limits — Ukraine offers an alternative.

The Current Flamingo's Achilles' Heel

The Flamingo in its current version is not an absolute precision missile. Its guidance architecture relies primarily on satellite navigation coupled with an inertial system, without the equivalent of the TERCOM (terrain contour matching) used by Tomahawk missiles or DSMAC terminal imagery. Its precision — a circular error probable of about 14 meters — is enough to destroy a large industrial building or a depot. But in an environment of intense electronic warfare, where Russia possesses one of the world's most sophisticated satellite jamming arsenals, this dependence on GPS constitutes a real vulnerability. This is where Diehl enters the scene.

According to Army Recognition, the most likely option would be an imaging infrared seeker — technology directly derived from the IRIS-T — possibly complemented by an electro-optical seeker for daytime visual recognition, or passive anti-radiation guidance to target radars and electronic warfare nodes. An active radar option is technically feasible but would introduce additional costs and problematic electromagnetic signatures. The goal: allow the missile to identify and strike a specific building inside a defended military industrial complex — even under intense GPS jamming conditions.

The Tension Between Precision and Production Economy

This technological upgrade raises a fundamental question: can an advanced seeker be integrated without blowing up the unit cost and betraying the Flamingo's economic promise? Here lies the central industrial challenge of the Diehl-Fire Point cooperation. At 500,000 dollars per unit, the Flamingo is only competitive because it is massively more affordable than its Western competitors. If the next-generation seeker raises the cost to 800,000 or one million dollars, the missile remains economically interesting compared to the Tomahawk — but the logic of saturation through volume becomes less obvious.

The answer probably lies in a segmentation of production: a standard low-cost variant for saturation strikes on wide infrastructure, and an improved terminally guided variant for protected high-value targets. This dual versioning would preserve both the economic advantage and operational versatility. Helmut Rauch formulated this indirectly: "For a new product, it makes a lot of sense to have it also in Germany or other countries." Industrial logic argues for differentiated co-production according to markets.

I am no weapons engineer. But I understand the tension experts describe: the more precise you make a weapon, the more expensive it becomes, and the fewer you can produce. The Ukrainians found a pragmatic answer — volume over terminal precision. Diehl wants to add precision. If the two sides succeed in preserving both properties simultaneously, it will be a major industrial breakthrough for European defense.

When Copenhagen Led the Way

Before Berlin entered the game, Copenhagen set the first milestone. In September 2025, the Danish government announced that a Fire Point subsidiary would begin producing solid fuel for boosters for the Flamingo in Denmark, in the town of Vojens, starting December 1, 2025. To make this possible, Denmark temporarily suspended 20 laws and regulations. This gesture was not trivial: it signaled that a sovereign NATO state was ready to modify its internal legal framework to host the Ukrainian defense industry on its soil.

But producing booster fuel is one thing. Producing the complete missile — airframe, engine, electronics, seeker, system integration — is quite another. What Germany is preparing is on a different scale: it is the full primary production of a Ukrainian strategic missile outside Ukrainian territory, on the soil of the Atlantic Alliance. The Danish precedent was an opening; the German decision would be a rupture.

The Geopolitical Lesson of an Industrial Choice

What the Danish precedent primarily demonstrated is that there is political will within the Nordic and Central European countries to cross the usual symbolic barriers. Denmark, a small country of 5.9 million people, showed more audacity than much larger powers. Germany, if it confirms Flamingo production, would do more than follow the Danish example: it would institutionalize the model, giving it an industrial dimension capable of influencing the entire continent.

The spokesperson for the German Ministry of Defense himself stated that striking strategic targets deep behind enemy lines has become "indispensable for credible deterrence" and that economical systems can "overwhelm enemy defenses by numbers and are therefore of great operational value." The Flamingo is not just an alternative to the Tomahawk — it is the concrete translation of a new doctrine of conventional deterrence for Europe.

I watch with a certain wonder at how quickly the small Nordic countries — Denmark, Finland, Sweden, the Baltics — have integrated the Ukrainian lesson. They understood before the others that Ukraine was not a geographically localized problem but an intellectual and industrial vanguard of resistance to authoritarian expansion. Germany is catching up.

The American Withdrawal and the Capability Void

To understand the urgency in Berlin, we must revisit the decision that triggered everything. Under an agreement negotiated by the Biden administration, the United States was to deploy a unit in Germany equipped with Typhon launchers capable of firing Tomahawk and SM-6 missiles — the first deployment of American intermediate-range missiles in Europe since the Cold War. This deployment was canceled by Donald Trump amid diplomatic friction with Chancellor Merz over the United States' war with Iran.

Simultaneously, according to estimates by the Washington Post, the United States fired approximately 850 Tomahawk missiles during the first weeks of the Iranian conflict, nearly a quarter of their total stock. The US Navy was expecting only 110 new missiles this year. The process for direct sales of Tomahawks to Germany is not expected to start before mid-2026 according to Politico. Conclusion: Berlin finds itself without a long-range missile, without the prospect of acquiring them quickly from Washington, and must find an existing, functional, and available alternative in the short term.

The Flamingo as a Systemic Response

German Ministry of Defense planning documents, viewed by Politico, explicitly mention the FP-5 Flamingo as well as the Bars drone as candidates for low-cost cruise missile procurement starting in 2027. The German approach is described as an experimental study that could lead to a production contract if the weapons prove suitable. The Ministry contacted Fire Point directly for information on its products — a step that goes beyond simple benchmarking and signals serious intent.

The Flamingo's decisive advantage over alternatives is simple: it already exists. It is in mass production. It has been used in combat. Its range of 3,000 km — about double the unclassified range of the Tomahawk Block V — would allow it to reach all of European Russia from German territory. This is a strategic advantage that cannot be ignored while Russia maintains missile forces in Kaliningrad and Western Russia, directly threatening NATO's European allies.

There is something bitter about this situation. Trump — what I call the West’s "necessary evil" — withdrew the Tomahawks from Germany for reasons that had nothing to do with European security. And paradoxically, this withdrawal is forcing Europe to accelerate its strategic autonomy. I don't know whether we should thank him or condemn him. Both, probably.

Born in Fire, Matured in Steel

Fire Point was founded in 2022, in the midst of the Russian war of aggression. In less than three years, the company has developed a complete family of weapon systems: the FP-1 and FP-2 strike drones, the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile, the FP-7 operational-tactical ballistic missile (first flight tests in late February 2026), the FP-9 long-range ballistic missile (tests scheduled for early summer 2026), and the Freya missile defense system developed jointly with Diehl Defence. This trajectory has no equivalent in the contemporary global defense industry — no company has ever built such a portfolio of strategic weapons in such a short time, in a country at open war.

The key to this performance lies in Fire Point's very philosophy, summarized by CEO Ihor Fedirko: "Ukrainian solutions, Ukrainian combat experience, Ukrainian engineering combined with the production, technological, and financial capabilities of partners." This model of accelerated co-development, tested in real combat conditions, is precisely what makes Fire Point irresistible to industrial partners like Diehl — which, after decades of theoretical engineering, is finally measuring its systems against the brutality of the real world.

The Engine Bottleneck and the Industrial Response

The main admitted limit of Fire Point is the availability of AI-25 engines — converted Soviet turbofans originally designed for the L-39 Albatros trainer jet. The annual production capacity of these engines is limited, which mechanically caps the rate of available missiles. Denys Shtilierman acknowledged this bottleneck while stating he expected to resolve it soon. Reports indicate that new engines, produced by a Ukrainian manufacturer, were to enter production in early 2026. Production in Germany would address this issue via access to European industrial supply chains, potentially substituting or supplementing the AI-25 engine with NATO-certified alternatives.

The Diehl-Fire Point cooperation on Freya — a jointly developed missile defense system — shows that the relationship already goes far beyond a simple commercial transaction. It is a deep technological alliance, where each partner brings what the other cannot manufacture alone: Fire Point brings raw combat experience, development speed, and a controlled-cost philosophy; Diehl brings seeker precision, international certifications, and financial depth. Together, they form an industrial entity whose complementarity is almost perfect.

Reading the story of Fire Point, I inevitably think of those Israeli defense companies born under conditions of existential threat that ended up dominating certain segments of the world market. Ukraine is living its Rafael moment, its Elbit moment. Except the time pressure is even greater, and the adversary is a nuclear power. What Fire Point is accomplishing is, objectively, dizzying.

From Germany, the Deterrence Spectrum Covers the Entire East

To measure the potential impact of Flamingo production in Germany, one only needs to deploy a map and a compass. From central Germany, a missile with a range of 3,000 kilometers covers all of European Russia — including Moscow (about 1,800 km from Berlin), Saint Petersburg, Kazan, Yekaterinburg, and even targets as deep as Novosibirsk according to Fire Point's most optimistic estimates. This includes the submarine bases in Murmansk, the military-industrial centers of the Urals, and the logistical depots that feed the Ukrainian front.

This strategic depth radically transforms the geography of European conventional deterrence. For decades, NATO Europe relied on the American nuclear umbrella and limited-range missiles for its forward defense. The Flamingo, produced in Germany and potentially sold to other members of the Alliance, introduces an autonomous deep conventional strike capability that Europe has not had since the end of the Cold War. It is a paradigm shift that Russia cannot ignore — and that it has every reason to fear.

The Weapon That Makes Kaliningrad Vulnerable

The military base in Kaliningrad — that Russian enclave wedged between Poland and Lithuania — has for years concentrated Iskander missiles, S-400 anti-aircraft systems, and various strike forces intended to threaten the Baltic states, Poland, and beyond. Until now, European NATO members did not have sufficient conventional deterrence capability to offset this threat. The Flamingo changes the calculus: at a comfortable range from Polish or Baltic territory, it could transform Kaliningrad from a pressure tool into a vulnerable target.

It is important to emphasize that the Flamingo's primary purpose is not to be a first-strike or escalation missile — but rather an instrument of deterrence through the threat of precise conventional retaliation. If Russia strikes Western civilian or military infrastructure, Europe must be able to respond without immediately resorting to nuclear weapons. This is precisely the capability gap that the Flamingo is beginning to fill — and that Putin, by launching his war of aggression, has involuntarily helped to create.

Geopolitics on a map is sometimes more telling than any speech. Tracing the operational radius of a Flamingo from Berlin allows you to visualize in seconds why Moscow is watching these negotiations with growing anxiety. Putin woke up a sleeping Europe. And this Europe, armed with its own missiles, is a reality he clearly hadn't calculated.

A Market Whose Dimensions are Becoming Clearer

To grasp what the production of Flamingos in Germany represents commercially, one must examine the available figures. Germany envisions an acquisition capacity for low-cost cruise missiles starting in 2027 in its rearmament plan. If Berlin orders even 1,000 Flamingos — a conservative figure compared to American Tomahawk stocks — it represents a contract of at least 500 million dollars, and more if the Diehl seeker is included in the price. If other NATO members align — Poland, the Baltic states, the Netherlands, even the United Kingdom — we are potentially talking about a market of several billion euros over the decade.

The logic of costs is ruthless for competitors. The Franco-British SCALP/Storm Shadow costs around 850,000 euros per unit for a range of 250 km. The German Taurus KEPD 350 is in the same ballpark. The Flamingo, even in an improved version with a Diehl seeker, should remain under one million dollars while offering a range twelve times greater than the SCALP. No Western conventional missile offers such a range-to-cost ratio. This is a structural competitive advantage that explains why the German Ministry of Defense contacted Fire Point directly.

The Ripple Effects on the European Industrial Base

The production of the Flamingo in Germany would not be limited to a single missile. It would create an industrial ecosystem: NATO-certified electronic component suppliers, maintenance and logistical support chains, testing and certification capabilities, access to European funding via the European Defence Fund. The cooperation model taking shape could also apply to other Ukrainian systems — the Bars, the FP-9, even the Freya in co-development with Diehl. The Ukrainian defense industrial base would thus be progressively integrated into the Western defense industrial fabric, simultaneously strengthening the capabilities of both parties.

German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius, during a visit to Kyiv, summarized the stakes with rare lucidity: "The technological leaps here in Ukraine are remarkable." This was not a diplomatic pleasantry. It was the explicit recognition of a now indisputable fact: Ukraine is a top-tier technological player in defense, and the West has an interest in partnering with it urgently.

I’m no financial analyst. But even I see the simple arithmetic behind this deal. When you have a missile that costs seven times less than its nearest competitor, that carries twice as far, and that is already in production, the question isn’t "should we buy it?" but "why didn't we start sooner?" Western defense bureaucracies have an answer to that question, but it isn't flattering.

Official Russian Discourse Facing a Distressing Reality

On the Kremlin side, the official reaction to the Flamingo announcements has fluctuated between minimization and warnings. Russian state media highlighted the missile's operational limits — its modest strike record, questions about its reliability, and doubts about Fire Point's ability to keep its production promises. These elements are not entirely without merit: of approximately 23 publicly documented strikes, only two directly hit their target, one more remains disputed, and six reached their target zones. These are figures that no one should ignore in a serious analysis.

But this limited record is partly due to the youth of the system and the terminal guidance problems precisely that Diehl is seeking to resolve. It also stems from the fact that Ukraine has used its Flamingos sparingly — reserving them for targets of exceptional strategic or military-industrial value. This is not the behavior of a failed system; it is the behavior of a system treated as a precious resource awaiting a production ramp-up. The real question is not what the Flamingo has achieved so far, but what it could achieve produced at 200 units per month from protected factories on NATO soil, with Diehl guidance.

The Signal That Moscow Cannot Ignore

Beyond official communiqués, serious Russian strategic analysis — as expressed in publications like the Nezavisimoe Voennoe Obozrenie newspaper — is necessarily concerned by the trajectory traced by this Diehl-Fire Point agreement. For decades, Russia relied on the assumption that Western Europe lacked deep conventional strike capability. This asymmetry allowed Moscow to threaten, intimidate, and adopt escalatory postures. The Flamingo produced in Germany is beginning to erode this calculated advantage — and Putin knows it.

Russia's nuclear intimidation strategy rests on the conviction that the West will never have the will or the capacity to respond conventionally in a credible way to aggression. If Europe acquires hundreds of missiles capable of striking military industrial complexes deep inside Russian territory, the geography of deterrence fundamentally changes. This is not an escalation — it is a rebalancing of terror that Russia should have anticipated before launching its invasion.

Putin made a monumental strategic blunder by invading Ukraine. Not only did he consolidate NATO like never before, integrate Sweden and Finland, and relaunch European rearmament — but he also, involuntarily, created and matured the Ukrainian defense industry he sought to destroy. The Flamingo is the child of his own aggression. He will have to live with that irony.

Regulatory Obstacles to NATO Production of the Flamingo

The road to German production of the Flamingo is not without hurdles. The first major complexity is regulatory: long-range cruise missiles are subject to the Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR), an international treaty that regulates exports of systems capable of carrying a payload of more than 500 kg over more than 300 km. The Flamingo far exceeds both these thresholds. Its classification as a drone or UAV system by Fire Point — a Ukrainian legal subtlety that facilitates government purchases in Ukraine — raises serious questions when attempting to export or produce it abroad.

Diehl Defence, as a NATO-certified German producer, must navigate a complex legal framework. Certification procedures for a new weapons system in Germany typically take several years. The announced schedule — operational capability by 2027 in Bundeswehr plans — is extremely ambitious, unless regulatory fast-track routes are found comparable to what Denmark did for booster fuel. Political pressure is strong: the Merz government has displayed a will to rearm quickly and no longer be trapped by bureaucratic delays that cost Germany years.

The Danish Model as a Legal Precedent

The fact that Denmark suspended 20 laws and regulations to host Fire Point fuel production on its soil is not trivial — it is a political signal sent to the entire Alliance: political will can transcend regulatory obstacles when the security stakes are clear enough. Germany has comparable legal tools — notably emergency legislative procedures that can accelerate the commissioning of equipment during periods of high security tension. Invoking NATO's Article 5 and the concept of a direct threat to German security could justify exceptional derogations.

The question of intellectual property is also central. The April 2026 technology agreement between Diehl and Fire Point was not made public, but it likely addresses the distribution of property rights over improvements made to the system. If Diehl adds its seeker to the Flamingo, who holds the rights to the improved version? How is resale to third parties handled? These questions are decisive for the long-term economic viability of the project and for Fire Point's export ambitions in the NATO market.

European defense history is largely a history of gridlocked bureaucracies, interminable committees, and certifications that take longer than the wars themselves. If Germany truly wants an alternative to the Tomahawk by 2027, it will have to decide whether rules are tools or ends in themselves. Denmark chose. Germany has the chance to go even further — or to block everything in one more committee.

Four Years of War Have Changed the Relationship Between Kyiv and the West

Since February 24, 2022, the West has grown accustomed to a comfortable narrative: Ukraine receives, the West gives. Weapons, ammunition, funds, political support — the flow went from West to East. This mental framework shaped how European capitols, public opinions, and even specialized media perceived the relationship. We must now unlearn it. The Diehl-Fire Point agreement symbolizes the end of this fundamental asymmetry. Ukraine is no longer just a client of Western defense industries — it is a supplier, a designer, and a full-fledged technological partner.

This evolution is the direct consequence of four years of the most intense war for national survival that Europe has known since 1945. Ukraine has developed under existential pressure a capacity for military innovation that surpasses, in several fields, what its allies have accomplished in peacetime. FPV drones, naval maritime drones, on-board electronic warfare, and now low-cost cruise missiles — Ukraine invented 21st-century warfare while the West was refining systems designed in the 20th. This is not a criticism of the West. It is a factual observation, and it calls for an urgent industrial response.

What This Means for the Future of the Alliance

The precedent created by the Diehl-Fire Point agreement goes beyond the Flamingo alone. It lays the foundations for an Indo-Pacific-transatlantic industrial cooperation model where countries at war or at high security risk can become innovation engines for the entire Alliance. Israel has followed this path since the 1960s. South Korea has been moving rapidly since the Korean War. Ukraine, with its base of engineers and its culture of constrained ingenuity, is perfectly positioned to become the third model in this category.

For the institutional NATO, this requires an evolution of industrial cooperation frameworks. The Alliance's current rules were designed for established producing states, not for defense startups born in wartime. We will need to invent new mechanisms for co-development, accelerated certification, and intellectual property sharing adapted to this unprecedented reality. The Diehl-Fire Point cooperation is perhaps the best practical test for these new institutional architectures.

This reversal touches me personally. I have covered European defense for years, and I have rarely experienced a moment so charged with symbolic meaning. It’s not often that history races ahead like this and the conceptual maps of a decade are redistributed in a matter of weeks. We are living, live, through the start of something massive — and of an importance we don’t yet fully grasp.

Summer 2026: A Pivotal Moment

Helmut Rauch clearly indicated that the next few weeks — meaning the summer of 2026 — would be decisive. Meetings between the Diehl and Fire Point teams are scheduled to finalize the technical and industrial terms of potential joint production. The outcome of these discussions will determine if Germany becomes the first NATO country to mass-produce a strategic strike weapon of Ukrainian design. The dynamic is favorable: both parties already signed a technology agreement in April, suggesting that the foundations of mutual trust are established. What remains is to negotiate volumes, cost- and profit-sharing arrangements, and production lead times.

Several milestones must be reached simultaneously: validation of the production site in Germany, regulatory approval by the relevant German authorities, integration and testing of the Diehl seeker on a Flamingo prototype, and — a crucial question — obtaining Ukrainian government approval for technology transfer under the MTCR. Fire Point has indicated it hopes production of the FP-7.x interceptor, developed in cooperation with Diehl, would begin in August 2026 — giving an indication of the pace at which the two firms expect to convert their technology agreements into actual production.

The Possible Scenarios

Three scenarios are emerging for the 2027-2028 horizon. In the first — the most favorable — Diehl and Fire Point conclude a full production agreement in the autumn of 2026, certifications are obtained through an accelerated regime, and the first "Made in Germany" Flamingos roll off the line in late 2027 or early 2028, equipped with the Diehl infrared seeker. In the second — intermediate — scenario, production in Germany is delayed by regulatory hurdles, but a co-integration agreement for the seeker on Ukrainian-produced Flamingos is concluded, allowing Germany to acquire them within a reasonable timeframe. In the third — pessimistic — scenario, legal and political blockages accumulate, and the agreement remains a project on paper.

The relative probability of these scenarios largely depends on the political will of the Merz government and the ability of the two companies to maintain their cooperation dynamic despite obstacles. Current signals — Rauch's public statement, the German Ministry's direct contacts with Fire Point, the planning documents viewed by Politico — indicate that the first or second scenario is significantly more likely than the third. The pressure of the European defense agenda leaves little luxury for indefinite procrastination.

I keep the caution of an aging journalist in covering defense affairs. Spectacular announcements at airshows have a long tradition of not materializing within the announced timeframes. But something about the density of the signals surrounding the Flamingo tells me this time is different. The urgency is real, the technology exists, the two partners have already collaborated, and the geopolitical pressure will not dissipate. It might not be 2027 — but it is inevitable.

A Major Geopolitical Fact, Whatever the Final Result

Regardless of the final outcome of the negotiations between Diehl Defence and Fire Point, one historical fact is already etched: in June 2026, an arms manufacturer from a NATO member country officially announced negotiations to produce a Ukrainian-designed strategic missile on the Alliance's territory. This announcement alone redefines the contours of what is politically and industrially possible in the field of transatlantic defense. It sends a message to Moscow, Washington, and the European allies who are still hesitating: the paradigm has changed.

Ukraine has paid an immeasurable price for this transformation — in human lives, in destruction, in collective suffering that words cannot contain. But from these ruins, a defense industry of exceptional vitality has emerged, forged in the harshest conditions imaginable. The Flamingo is the child of Ukrainian resistance. Its production on NATO soil is the international recognition that this resistance has not only survived but has produced something lasting and precious for the whole of democratic civilization.

What the West Must Understand Now

The message of the Diehl-Fire Point agreement is as simple as it is fundamental: the West can no longer afford to treat Ukraine as a recipient of its aid. It must treat it as a full-fledged partner, a supplier of technologies, a living laboratory for defense innovation. Those who understand this — Denmark, Merz's Germany, the Baltic states, Poland — are gaining a decisive head start in building real European strategic autonomy. Those who are slow to admit it will find themselves overtaken by history.

Vladimir Putin wanted to destroy Ukraine. Instead, he produced a military industrial power that sends its missiles to the factories of the Urals and its technologies to German production lines. It is the most stinging strategic setback imaginable. And this irony — terrible, magnificent, and full of hope — deserves to be told clearly, without hedging, and without false diplomatic modesty.

By Maxime Marquette, columnist

Editorial stance

I am not a journalist but a columnist and analyst. My expertise lies in observing and analysing the geopolitical, economic and strategic dynamics that shape our world. My work is to take political strategies apart, to understand global economic movements, to put the decisions of international actors in context and to offer analytical perspectives on the changes that are redefining our societies.

I do not claim the cold objectivity of traditional journalism, which stops at reporting facts. I claim analytical clarity, rigorous interpretation and a deep understanding of the complex issues that concern us all. My role is to give meaning to the facts, to place them in their historical and strategic context, and to offer a critical reading of events.

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