Ukrainian firm Fire Point is building 100 FP-1 attack drones every day. That’s … a lot of drones.

Building thousands of FP-1s and other long-range attack drones a month, Ukraine is coming close to matching Russia’s own production of Shahed attack drones.

Meanwhile, Fire Point is also building new Flamingo cruise missiles (also known as FP-5s), adding reach and punch to Ukraine’s escalating campaign of deep strikes targeting air bases, factories, oil refineries and other strategic facilities inside Russia.

“Ukraine is increasingly taking the war to Russia now,” American-Ukrainian war correspondent David Kirichenko wrote in a new essay for The Atlantic Council.

The FP-1 production ramp-up, first reported by the Associated Press, is just part of Ukraine’s deep strike build-up. With German financing, Ukrainian industry is also churning out An-196 attack drones, pilotless sport planes modified to drop bombs and Bars “cruise missile drones,” among many other strike munitions.

More drones than expected

Back in December, Ukrainian Pres. Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Ukraine would acquire 30,000 one-way attack drones in 2025. But the accelerating ramp-up means Ukraine will almost certainly exceed that target—by a lot. FP-1 production alone could exceed 36,000 units this year.

Russia’s sprawling drone factory in Yelabuga, 1,200 km from Ukraine, assembles around 5,000 Shahed attack drones every month. The 200-kg drones, each ranging thousands of kilometers under satellite navigation, have become Russia’s most important strike munitions as Ukrainian raids have destroyed much of the Russian air force bomber fleet with its air-launched cruise missiles.

The Shaheds are priced to move at as little as $50,000 per copy, compared to millions of dollars for just one of Russia’s best Kh-101 cruise missiles. The low price translates into bigger deliveries and denser swarms of Shaheds clouding the skies over Ukrainian cities.

There are so many Shaheds over Ukraine on a nearly daily basis that Ukrainian air defense crews struggle to intercept them in ways that don’t deplete Ukraine’s munitions stocks and shatter its finances. “The Kremlin is willing to lose many Shaheds—about 75% of attacks fail—because mass waves are designed to exhaust air-defense systems,” noted “Alchemist,” the head of the Night Watch electronic warfare team in Kyiv.

Now Ukraine can vex Russia with the same problem. As drone deliveries rise and efficiencies increase, the cost goes down. An FP-1 now costs just $55,000. It’s possible the An-196 and other Ukrainian deep-strike munitions are also dropping in price. The result should be a beneficial cycle of increasing orders that further reduce costs as efficiencies accumulate.

The bottom line: Ukraine is already pummeling Russia with thousands of drones a month and inflicting more damage, more widely. “Based on my observations and the data we have collected with the team over the past two months, there has been a noticeable increase in the effectiveness of hits,” reported “Tatarigami,” the head of the Frontelligence Insight analysis group in Ukraine.

Worse is coming for Russia: more Ukrainian drones and, soon, many more of the new Flamingo missiles. Where an FP-1 might motor 1,000 km with a 50-kg warhead, a Flamingo jets a whopping 3,000 km with a 1,000-kg warhead. Fire Point told the Associate Press it aims to ramp up to building seven of the giant missiles every day no later than October.

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Ukraine’s deep strikes are becoming more destructive. The main reason, it seems, is the combination of a largely German-funded attack drone—and the powerful warhead, or warheads, it can carry.

As recently as last year, the Ukrainian military and its supporting agencies—in particular, the state security service, or SBU—struggled to make an impact with long-range drones. “More than half of the recorded strikes between September and February had limited impact,” Ukrainian analysis group Frontelligence Insight concluded in a March study.

But that’s changing as more and better drones with bigger and better-designed warheads strike more frequently many hundreds of kilometers inside Russia.

Tatarigami, Frontelligence Insight’s founder, recently sensed the change. “Based on an early look at several dozen hits over the past two weeks, both the success rate and damage from Ukrainian long-range drones have gone up compared to late 2024 [to] early 2025,” he wrote. “I haven’t put together the data set yet, but even at a glance, the results already look different.”

In recent weeks, Ukrainian drones have hit Russian airfields—destroying several warplanes and helicopters—while also blowing up key components of the refinery in Novokuibyshevsk, which accounts for around 3% of annual refining in Russia.

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One Ukrainian drone keeps smashing Russia’s top war factories—so Germany’s paying for 500 more

Thanks in large part to German largess, Ukrainian firm Ukroboronprom is building hundreds more of its best An-196 Liutyi attack drones than it had planned earlier this year.

According to German newspaper Die Welt, the government of German Chancellor Friedrich Merz is providing around $100 million to pay for 500 of the propeller-driven, satellite-guided Liutyi drones. A Liutyi carries an approximately 50-kg warhead farther than 800 km. The $200,000 drone can follow a complex flight path and change altitude in order to avoid Russian air-defenses. 

Early Liutyi models may have had comparatively simple and light warheads. “One contributing factor” in the limited effectiveness of drone strikes in 2024 and early 2025, Frontelligence Insight concluded, “is the relatively small warhead size of certain Ukrainian drones, such as the Liutyi.”

For comparison, a Russian Shahed drone carries a 90-kg warhead.

It’s possible Ukroboronprom has been improving and enlarging the warhead on the An-196. Roy, a Canadian drone expert, recently observed a 60-kg OFB-60 warhead apparently recovered from the wreck of a crashed Liutyi. “The 60-kg high-explosive shaped-charge munition has a concave metal face for forming an … explosively formed projectile” that can punch through metal, Roy noted.

Warhead options

It’s not clear that all Liutyi drones have the 60-kg shaped-charge warhead. The drones are often described as carrying just 50 kg of explosives. It’s actually possible the drones can carry even bigger payloads. Missile expert Fabian Hoffman even claimed some An-196s are now packing 75-kg warheads.

A bigger warhead comes at a cost, however. “Given the long distances these [Ukrainian] drones must travel, increasing their warhead size would require adjustments to weight, fuel capacity and overall design,” Frontelligence assessed. In short, there’s a direct tradeoff. A bigger warhead means more destruction but a shorter range.

The reported recent development of a Liutyi model capable of traveling 2,000 km may imply some of the drones are carrying lighter warheads rather than heavier ones—trading away explosive payload in order to add fuel capacity.

So when Tatarigami senses Ukrainian drone strikes are becoming more destructive, there may be caveats. The most destructive raids might be the one striking closest to the Ukrainian border. Yes, a few An-196s or other drone types may range 2,000 km into Russia. But the ones dealing the real damage—potentially with the most powerful shaped-charge warheads—are probably hitting targets no more than 800 km from Ukraine.

Not coincidentally, SBU drones pummeled Saky air base in Russian-occupied Crimea on 3 August, reportedly destroying one Sukhoi Su-30 fighter jet and damaging another—and also damaging three Sukhoi Su-24 bombers. Saky is fewer than 300 km from the front line in southern Ukraine.

That’s well within range of a harder-hitting Liutyi drone.

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