Lockheed showed a Patriot successor due in 2031 on the day Poland said its own PAC-3 deliveries will slip. Ukraine's ballistic defense this winter rests on missiles allies already hold.
Ukraine's first announced FP-7 combat launch gives Kyiv a domestic ballistic strike weapon. Fire Point's faster FP-7.x interceptor faces a harder test, and both depend on production Ukraine has not yet shown.
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.
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.
Ukraine's largest missile maker flew a prototype interceptor it says could stop ballistic missiles for under $1 million each, against a PAC-3 that runs $5.3 million, if it works by 2027.