The drone maker powering Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign

The chief executive of Ukraine’s leading arms company says Kyiv has “learned the hard way” that military strength is an essential precursor to diplomacy, describing deep strikes into Russian territory as a core tenet of the country’s pressure campaign.

Missile and drone maker Fire Point, which says it currently facilitates more than 60% of Ukraine’s so-called “long-range sanctions,” has scaled exponentially since being founded in response to Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022.

The defense-tech startup produced around 200 drones that year, a feat CEO Iryna Terekh described as a “huge achievement.”

Since then, the Kyiv-headquartered startup has swelled from three founding members to more than 7,000 employees and Terekh says it “looks realistic” to expect the team to produce more than 100,000 drones by year-end.

“We have to understand that we live, unfortunately, in the same timeline with a completely barbarous, imperialistic neighbor and we can expect whatever,” Fire Point CEO Iryna Terekh told CNBC by video call.

“Unfortunately, I was in that naïve state of mind before the full-scale invasion that we will find a way to de-escalate the situation and find a diplomatic way to deal with this, but from what we can observe, this is not something that is possible.”

Russia’s Foreign Ministry did not respond to CNBC’s request for comment. Russian President Vladimir Putin has previously framed the conflict as a pursuit to reverse Russia’s post-Soviet retreat and revive Moscow’s superpower status.

From Siberia to occupied Crimea, Ukraine’s drone campaign appears to have revived hopes that the war could be shifting in Kyiv’s favor, although commentators have warned that efforts to raise the cost of the conflict for Russia risk further escalation.

Some analysts have also questioned whether Ukrainian drones alone can force Putin to the negotiating table, with the Atlantic Council’s Christopher Isajiw suggesting that progress toward peace may only become possible when continuing the war becomes more costly for the Russian president than ending it.

Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia’s Amazon-style retail giant Wildberries in recent weeks, seeking to squeeze a critical piece of Russia’s consumer economy and create a new pressure point for Putin.

Russian forces, meanwhile, have increased the number of missile strikes on Ukrainian cities, likely seeking to exploit Kyiv’s shortage of ballistic missile interceptors.

Known for flagship products such as the FP-1 series of deep-strike drones and the FP-5 Flamingo cruise missile,…