Ukrainian drone and missile producer Fire Point has finalized deals with more than a dozen European defense firms to supply radar, guidance and supporting components for the Freyja missile defense initiative, and integration work is now underway, according to the company's CEO.

Ukraine has moved quickly to find allies capable of creating a system that can counter Russian ballistic missiles. The broader European effort was formally announced in Paris last month by ten governments along with twelve defense companies, among them Eurosam, Leonardo and SAAB.

Kyiv still depends on the American Patriot system to intercept ballistic threats traveling at several times the speed of sound, yet limited supplies of its interceptors, worsened by conflict in the Middle East, have left Ukraine vulnerable.

"Pretty much everything is agreed," CEO Iryna Terekh told Reuters, noting that thirteen industrial partners are already on board. Fire Point targets its first successful interception by the middle of 2027, she added.

Ukraine's Fire Point develops pan-European Freyja missile

The Ukrainian firm is supplying the FP7.X, an accelerated variant of its FP7 ballistic missile, to serve as the interceptor and is currently combining it with the guidance unit known as the seeker, Terekh explained.

"Right now we are in the most intense and also in the most complicated stage of finally assembling everything together with surveillance radars, with tracking radars, with the seekers."

Norway's Kongsberg is developing the command center that will tie the different elements together. The company did not immediately reply to a request for comment.

Industry reports indicate that Germany's Diehl Defence, which builds a seeker for its IRIS-T air defense system, will furnish the guidance unit. A Diehl spokesperson confirmed discussions with Fire Point but declined to provide specifics. Terekh also declined to comment.

Fire Point aims to produce a ballistic interceptor for less than €1 million ($1.2 million) per missile, Terekh said - a quarter to a sixth of the cost of a Patriot.

"We're trying to squeeze a program that usually takes 20 or 30 years into a matter of a couple of years," Terekh said, adding that there had been at least five tests of the interceptor missile. The project will rely on open-source architecture so that different components, such as a Weibel radar or one from Saab, can be exchanged as needed, according to Ukrainian officials.

The number of industrial partners could grow to around twenty, which would boost production capacity, Terekh said. She added that Fire Point is speaking with Ukrainian state-owned missile manufacturers, though she declined to name them.

Terekh said the participating companies will fund research and development until a minimum viable product is achieved, which she defined as the successful interception of a ballistic missile.

Attack missiles nearly ready for combat

"We expect the launcher to have from four to six missiles. So if from one batch there was an interception of a ballistic missile for MVP, this would be a wonderful result," Terekh said.

A missile gets through only if all the interceptors in a launcher miss. Keeping the probability of six misses in a row below 5 percent, an industry standard, requires each interceptor to hit roughly 40 percent of the time, according to Fabian Hoffmann, missile expert at the Norwegian Institute for Defence Studies.

If it could really be done for €1 million, it would be "pretty impressive" and "very cheap," Hoffmann said.

The FP7 missile includes an attack version designed to strike ground targets. This variant has undergone about fifteen test launches and is now undergoing certification by the Ukrainian Defense Ministry, a process Terekh expects to last two to four more weeks.

Fire Point targets first combat use of this version in early autumn and late autumn for the larger FP9 ballistic missile, which the company says will be able to reach Moscow.

Terekh said the FP7's architecture draws from Soviet-era designs for the S300 and S400 interceptors, yet Fire Point's missile now shares only 20 percent similarity with those weapons.

In a recent interview, Fire Point co-founder Denys Shtilierman said the Soviet plans had been obtained as a favor by Timur Mindich, a former business associate of President Volodymyr Zelenskiy who faces corruption charges and is now a fugitive in Israel.

Fire Point says it declined an offer from Mindich to purchase a stake in the company.

Fire Point is moving forward with development of its own engine for the FP5 cruise missile, known as the Flamingo, which has struck several notable military sites in Russia this year.

It had been using second-hand jet engines, "digging through the cemetery of the engines like in a thrift store," Terekh said.

These engines are becoming harder to obtain, so Fire Point is now assembling the first ten units of its own prototype.

"As soon as we're happy with the results of tests of these test engines, there'll definitely be many more Flamingos," Terekh said.