Russia first outran Ukraine's cheap drone shield. Now it is blinding the operators, pushing the defense toward onboard guidance and digital links that erode the interceptor's defining cost advantage.
Fire Point has closed agreements with 13 European partners, but national licensing rules now threaten a mid-2027 interceptor that Ukraine needs before Patriot supplies recover.
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.
Britain, France and Germany agreed to back an anti-ballistic system built around Ukraine's FP-7.x interceptor, a $700,000 missile that just hit 25 km in testing, while German industry showed its own cheap-intercept hardware at ILA Berlin.