by Brent M. Eastwood,  Warrior Analyst

If President Donald Trump will remain consistent with his recent announcement that he will support Ukraine ejecting all the Russians out of its sovereign territory to win the war, Volodymyr Zelensky’s forces have much to overcome. One way of achieving this victorious strategic end state is for Ukraine to produce its own long-range missiles that can turn the tide in the fighting and break Russia’s will to fight.

Enter the new FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile that the Ukrainian rocket forces fired for the first time at the end of August. The projectile has a range of 1,860 miles that can reach deep into Russia’s homeland. The Flamingo is indigenously produced and now Kyiv doesn’t have to worry about restrictions placed on long-range fires from Western-supplied rockets and missiles.

Pretty In Pink

Newsweek cited video from OSINT Technical on X that revealed three Flamingos had been launched August 31. The warhead for the missile is at least a ton and flies 560 miles per hour. The name derives from a moniker caused by an error in the color of the cruise missile build that initially churned out pink prototypes, the Associated Press said.

Can a Startup Transform the Missile Fight?

The FP-5 is manufactured by a scrappy Kyiv-based firm called Fire Point that aims to use asymmetric innovation to fight an enemy that outmans and outguns Ukraine. Fire Point hope to begin making the Flamingo in mass numbers by the end of the year. The Flamingo is not entirely accurate with its GPS-assisted inertial navigation but that should improve with time.

Conversing With a Missile Expert

For more I interviewed Fabian Hoffman who is a Fellow with the Transatlantic Defense and Security Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Hoffman said there are upsides and downsides to the new cruise missile.

“Its advantages lie in its unprecedented range for a Ukrainian-made system, its heavy payload that can inflict substantial damage, and a design – theoretically – simple enough to be manufactured at scale. The drawbacks are it’s rather large and non-stealthy design, making it more visible to air defenses, the fact that production numbers depend heavily on a single engine type that likely is difficult to source, and its heavy reliance on GPS guidance, which exposes it to jamming,” Hoffman said.

Taking Advantage of Russia’s Dispersed Missile Defense Systems

The Ukrainians are developing new long-range missile doctrine that they hope will make a difference in the fight and long-range cruise missiles they can make at home are designed to transform the battlefield and stretch Russian air defenses.

“The Flamingo is the first missile in Ukraine’s arsenal to theoretically combine long range with high yield. Another consequence of its range is that it forces wider dispersal of Russian air-defense assets. This is significant given that Russia has already been unable to cover the vastness of its territory with air defenses effectively, which will now become even harder,” Hoffman said.

Long-range Fires Are Desperately Needed

The FP-5 is an example of how the Ukrainians can make the Russians pay far behind the frontlines and hopefully change the balance of power.

“Flamingo extends Ukraine’s reach beyond the front lines to virtually all relevant targets west of the Urals. Its heavy warhead provides Ukraine a tool of destruction rather than disruption, in contrast to smaller drones and mini-cruise missiles that often inflict only limited or temporary damage. At the same time, its ultimate impact will depend on numbers. Meaningful shifts in the balance require sustained, large-scale production and effective integration into strike campaigns. So far, the manufacturer has demonstrated the existence of the Flamingo, but not the ability to mass-produce the missile,” Hoffman said.

The Flamingo has emerged as a process from the beginning of the war in which Ukraine had few long-range missiles that could explode inside Russia. Necessity is the mother of invention, and engineers and technicians got to work on a way to supplement the rocket forces so they could answer Russian weapons like air-launched glide bombs.

“At the outset of the war, Ukraine only had Neptune anti-ship cruise missiles, which were limited in range and not optimized for land attack purposes, and production capacities were very low. In 2023 and 2024, Western partners supplied conventional long-range strike weapons, but their impact was constrained by small quantities and restrictive targeting rules. Beginning in 2024, Ukraine moved to indigenize long-range drone and missile production and has since massively scaled up manufacturing of light long-range drones and light cruise missiles, yet it has struggled to enter the heavy-missile segment. If Flamingo production can be scaled, it would become the first Ukrainian mass-produced ‘heavy hitter,’” Hoffman explained.

I asked Hoffman how much the Flamingo can make a difference in the war and whether it can change the balance of power on the battlefield.

“It is too early to call Flamingo a turning point. Its range and payload expand Ukraine’s options, and if produced in large numbers it could intensify Ukraine’s long-range strike campaign against Russia’s oil and gas industries. However, production rates remain uncertain, initial use has likely revealed some issues that require correction, and costs per missile are relatively high, making sustained financing more challenging than for Ukraine’s long-range drone programs. This being said, if Ukraine can scale production, integrate the system into a coherent strike doctrine, and secure long-term funding, it may become a decisive factor. For now, it remains a promising but still maturing capability,” he replied.

About the Author: Brent M. Eastwood 

Brent M. Eastwood, PhD is the author of Don't Turn Your Back On the World: a Conservative Foreign Policy and Humans, Machines, and Data: Future Trends in Warfare plus two other books. Brent was the founder and CEO of a tech firm that predicted world events using artificial intelligence. He served as a legislative fellow for US Senator Tim Scott and advised the senator on defense and foreign policy issues. He has taught at American University, George Washington University, and George Mason University. Brent is a former US Army Infantry officer. He can be followed on X @BMEastwood.