Mindich, Denmark, nationalisation – and US$7 billion: we unpack the main controversies surrounding Fire Point
It's been a week since Ukrainska Pravda published the latest batch of Mindich tapes, and it was the mention of Fire Point, the drone and missile manufacturer, that caused the biggest stir.
In the newly released recordings, Tymur Mindich – co-owner of the TV production company Kvartal 95 and currently a person of interest in investigations by the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) – is heard discussing operational matters with then defence minister Rustem Umierov on behalf of Fire Point.
The release of the recordings has sparked numerous disputes. Some claim the company has received a whopping UAH 311 billion (about US$7.1 billion) worth of orders from the government. Some are calling for it to be nationalised. Some argue that the anti-corruption activists have derailed important international contracts, while others have been attempting to assess the effectiveness of the company's drones on the battlefield by eye.
In an effort to cut through the emotional reactions from Fire Point's supporters and critics alike, Ukrainska Pravda set out to examine the most common myths and misconceptions that have surfaced in the public debate.
The "hundreds of billions" myth
The first myth to emerge from the publication of the NABU recordings is that Fire Point supposedly received UAH 311 billion in government funds. While the figure of 311 billion does indeed appear in the tapes, it's likely to have been misinterpreted by the general public.
The key moment occurs at 1:02:08 in this video by Ukrainska Pravda journalist Mykhailo Tkach. Tymur Mindich complains to then defence minister Rustem Umierov that Fire Point is short of working capital, as it supposedly needs to invest US$150 million in the development of ballistic missiles. He asks for financial support – loans, export opportunities, or simply payment for previous FP-1 drone orders, the profits from which would be reinvested in the missile programme.
Umierov replies that "all hope is pinned on 17 July". He then adds: "311 billion – that's the whole lot." When Mindich asks whether that is all for him, Umierov responds: "I'll tell you how much will go to you now." It was this exchange and the unclear phrasing that led to the UAH 311 billion being attributed to Fire Point.
The reality is more prosaic. "17 July" was the date when amendments were due to be made to the state budget, including an increase in defence spending. The UAH 311 billion represented the total increase in expenditure for the entire Ministry of Defence. That's why Umierov says 311 billion is "the whole lot".
Fire Point CEO Denys Shtilierman has denied the widely circulated claim about the UAH 311 billion and stated that the company's total revenue for 2025 was UAH 29.3 billion (US$669 million). Should this figure be trusted?
Chief Technology Officer Iryna Terekh told AP in August 2025 that the company was producing 3,000 FP-1 drones and 30 FP-5 Flamingo missiles per month. The declared cost is US$55,000 per drone and US$600,000 per missile.
Accordingly, if Terekh's figures are accurate, as of August, Fire Point was producing roughly UAH 8 billion (US$182.5 million) worth of products per month. At the time, however, the company was still in the process of scaling up, like many other long-range UAV manufacturers, so production volumes had been lower in previous months and would subsequently increase further.
The reported production figures broadly align with operational dynamics – during the same period, Russian sources reported detecting 3,000-4,000 Ukrainian drones per month.
It is therefore reasonable to conclude that Fire Point's revenue last year amounted to tens of billions of hryvnias, not hundreds of billions.
According to Shtilierman, the company now produces 6,000 drones per month, and at the end of last year it was producing 60-90 Flamingo missiles a month. This suggests that the company's revenues should have at least doubled in the new year.
Mindich and nationalisation
In the published excerpts from the tapes, Tymur Mindich – a former business partner of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy – repeatedly referred to Fire Point as if it were his own company, saying "We won't manage the working capital," "We can produce," "We're a real company." He also discusses details of an investment deal with the UAE regarding the sale of the company.
Judging by the tone of his conversation with the defence minister, Mindich comes across as an authorised representative of the company's interests (lobbyist) at least, if not one of its owners.
Fire Point declined to publicly comment to Ukrainska Pravda on the possible context of this conversation or Tymur Mindich's status at the time.
However, in an earlier conversation with Ukrainska Pravda, Iryna Terekh did not deny that Mindich may have assisted the company, "as many other people have".
Following the publication of the tapes, the Public Anti-Corruption Council under the Ministry of Defence (PAC MoD) raised the issue of the need to nationalise the company. The PAC MoD is an advisory body to the Ministry of Defence made up of civil society representatives.
Yurii Hudymenko, chairman of the PAC MoD, admitted to Ukrainska Pravda that he does not believe the state would be an effective owner and regards nationalisation as an unsatisfactory solution, but in his view there is no alternative.
Nationalising defence companies is nothing new for Ukraine. By law, the National Security and Defence Council can transfer companies' assets into state ownership until the end of martial law if they are critical to defence capabilities, subject to a corresponding decision by the Staff of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief.
This was the mechanism used when the engine manufacturer Motor Sich and the automotive company KrAZ (the Kremenchuk Automobile Plant) were nationalised at the start of the full-scale invasion. In those cases, the state had objectively solid grounds to do so: the owner of Motor Sich, Viacheslav Bohuslaiev, is currently on trial on suspicion of treason, while KrAZ was on the verge of bankruptcy when it was nationalised.
But what grounds could there be for nationalising Fire Point?
The PAC MoD's logic is straightforward. Hudymenko believes that based on the tapes, a Ukrainian court could rule that Tymur Mindich is the true owner of Fire Point. If such a ruling were issued, all of Fire Point's assets and operations could be immediately frozen, since Mindich has been sanctioned.
The PAC MoD is proposing that the company be "preventatively nationalised" to make it impossible for that to happen and ensure stable supplies to the defence forces.
"The same applies to the body armour supplier Milikon UA," Hudymenko said. "It's registered in the name of Dmytro Stetsenko, although Mindich says in the tapes that he invested the money and is therefore the beneficial owner."
Separately, the PAC MoD insists that the issue has a moral dimension, believing that "the state leadership must completely distance itself from former and current personal ties with individuals who have used their position, offices and connections for personal enrichment".
Nevertheless, the idea of nationalisation has come under criticism, as there are doubts about not only the effectiveness of state management, but also the legal framework and potential consequences.
Lawyer Yevhen Hrushovets, a partner at Ario Law Firm, told Ukrainska Pravda: "As a society, we may associate a particular individual with a particular company, but legally proving that that person is the actual owner would be almost impossible.
Even if Mindich were to say on tape that he owns 99% of Fire Point and is dismissing Shtilierman, legally this would mean nothing, because tomorrow he could say something different.
In criminal cases, evidence is assessed only in its totality – that is, the tapes alone and their forensic analysis cannot serve as grounds for a court ruling recognising Mindich as the company's beneficial owner.
Another issue is that someone would have to conduct such an investigation. NABU does not have the authority to do so; it only investigates potential damage to the state budget. Who would file the claim and carry out the investigation?"
According to Hrushovets, nationalisation in such a situation could create significant legal and operational risks for the company – not only potential arbitration proceedings, including international ones, but also possible claims against officials, changes in the management structure, and the risk of the company's operations being destabilised during the transition to state ownership. And that would pose a threat to the missile programme as a whole.
Fire Point told Ukrainska Pravda that they have only heard about nationalisation from the PAC MoD, and that no authorised officials have seriously discussed the issue with them.
Was this a blow to international cooperation?
The risk of a disruption to funding and international partnerships is frequently mentioned in the context of the scandals surrounding Fire Point. The reason is that the lion's share of the company's orders is financed by Ukraine's European partners, who are sensitive to any signs of corruption.
The company's supporters argue that anti-corruption activists are deliberately damaging the manufacturer's image and making Fire Point toxic for partners. Their opponents insist that the company is discrediting itself through its alleged ties to someone so mired in corruption.
However, the key question remains: what impact have the Mindich tapes actually had on Fire Point's international activities?
The argument that this would be a blow to international cooperation was first raised when the first NABU tapes were published in autumn 2025 and rumours about Mindich's influence on the company began to swirl. Denmark, a key foreign investor in FP-1 production, did express concern and began requesting explanations from Ukraine.
But did the scandal lead to a decline in drone orders? No. Far from falling since the first Fire Point controversy, production has doubled. And as before, the majority of it continues to be financed by Ukraine's partners.
Why is that? Largely because the company enjoys a remarkably high level of trust among European partners. For instance, during a recent press tour in Brussels attended by journalists from Ekonomichna Pravda, European Defence Commissioner Andrius Kubilius held the company up as an example of rapid scaling-up in missile production and said European manufacturers could learn a lot from Ukraine.
This perception of Fire Point in the West is reinforced by the company's actual capabilities, which its management periodically demonstrates to ambassadors; by the significance of its facilities in the war against Russia; and by its pricing, which Western partners consider justified and which has been verified by external auditors. The presence of a prominent figure on its advisory board – former US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo – is likely another factor bolstering the company's reputation.
Another question is whether production could have grown even further had there been no scandals. To answer that, you would need access to all of Fire Point's international dealings – and that information is a commercial secret.
After the new batch of tapes were published, journalist Yefrem Lukatskyi claimed that a contract with Denmark to build a Fire Point factory there had collapsed as a result of Ukrainska Pravda's investigation.
"Congratulations to the corruption exposers – a contract with the Danish side related to the production of solid-fuel engines has been disrupted!" he wrote on Facebook.
The myth of the collapsed contract subsequently spread online, but it appears to be only partly true.
Fire Point told Ukrainska Pravda it was true that the agreement on the Danish factory had been due to be signed on the day the tapes were published. The parties were reportedly ready to proceed, but due to the surrounding discourse, the Danes decided to postpone the final signing so that all the circumstances could be clarified.
In other words, even if the signing was disrupted, it was only "in the moment"; overall, the negotiations are continuing, and no one has definitively withdrawn from the project. In this context it's worth recalling that Denmark's ambassador, Troels Lund Poulsen, stated in December 2025 that there was no corruption-related link with the factory in Denmark, as its operations would have to comply with Danish law. He added that he had no concerns regarding the establishment of Fire Point in Denmark, although he remains concerned about the ongoing discussion of the corruption scandal in Ukraine.
But it would be wrong to claim that the scandal has had no impact whatsoever on the company's activities. Any delays in signing key agreements represent a setback for the missile programme and push back the point at which mass production can be achieved.
Fire Point also told Ukrainska Pravda that besides the delayed agreement with the Danes, other processes related to cooperation with international companies have slowed down since the publication of the excerpts from the tapes.
Is Fire Point an effective company?
One of the key questions asked amid the corruption scandal is whether Fire Point is effective as a company. Its critics often point out the contrast between Zelenskyy's pledge to supply 3,000 missiles and an OSINT analysis by Ukrainska Pravda which documented only 23 Flamingo missile launches ever.
However, first of all, the president was talking about the supply of 3,000 missiles and so-called missile-drones – in other words, not only the Flamingo, but also Neptune, Peklo, Ruta, Palianytsia and so on. How many of these systems were delivered in 2025 remains unknown.
Secondly, Ukrainska Pravda only reported launches that have been visually confirmed. The real production figures are higher, and some strikes may not have been included in the statistics, as not all hits are publicised online. Only the General Staff can provide the true number of successful Flamingo launches.
Fire Point's core products are its long-range ("deep strike") FP-1 drones and mid-range ("middle strike") FP-2 drones. Ukrainska Pravda has described these systems and their role on the battlefield in a number of reports:
- Attacks on Russia's defence industry
- Attacks on Russia's energy sector
- Mid-range attacks
- Long-range attacks
- Strikes over 1,000 km away
- Flamingo missile attacks
- The history of Fire Point
These articles provide an overall picture of the company's development and the effectiveness of its long-range drones and those of other Ukrainian manufacturers.
But do the results achieved correspond to the money spent, and is the cost of FP-1 and FP-2 drones and FP-5 Flamingo missiles justified in relation to their tasks? Only representatives of the defence forces, who have access to the most comprehensive data on their deployment and performance, can answer that question.
Translated by Myroslava Zavadska
Edited by Teresa Pearce