Europe lines up to build Ukraine's missiles, starting with the Flamingo

Combat-proven Ukrainian strike weapons are becoming NATO's shortcut around a deep-strike gap that Europe's own programs will not close until the 2030s.

European missile makers are moving to build combat-proven Ukrainian weapons on their own soil. Germany's Diehl Defence, which makes the IRIS-T air-defense system, plans to produce Ukraine's Flamingo cruise missile in Germany and will meet its maker, Fire Point, in the coming weeks, The War Zone reported. Diehl signed an undisclosed technology deal with Fire Point in April and wants to fit the Flamingo with a more advanced seeker.

The Flamingo, also called the FP-5, is a trailer-launched cruise missile with a claimed 3,000-kilometer range and a roughly 1,000-kilogram warhead, well beyond the reach Ukraine's allies have been willing to supply.

The Diehl talks are one of three German-Ukrainian missile moves in a week. Hensoldt and Fire Point signed a memorandum at Eurosatory to build FREYJA, a ballistic-missile-defense system in which Hensoldt supplies the radar and Fire Point acts as prime contractor with its FP-7 missile, Ukrinform reported. Earlier this week, MBDA, Europe's largest missile house, signed on with Ukraine's Luch to co-develop the Neptune-2, the cruise-missile line that sank the Moskva in 2022.

The driver is a gap. Washington has refused Kyiv's requests for Tomahawks and scrapped a planned US long-range fires battalion for Germany. Europe's own deep-strike programs, the multinational ELSA and a UK-German precision weapon, are not due to field until the 2030s.

The flow has reversed. Europe spent three years shipping weapons into Ukraine. The deals on the table now would build Ukrainian missiles, and license their combat record, on European soil. Diehl's meetings with Fire Point run through the coming weeks, CEO Helmut Rauch said. Watch for a German Flamingo line.