A photograph published on the official website of Ukrainian arms manufacturer Fire Point shows a missile following a trajectory resembling that of a ballistic weapon. According to Voennoye Obozreniye, the image may be a deliberate hint that the company has begun testing a new Ukrainian ballistic missile.

Fire Point’s chief designer and co-owner Denis Shtilerman previously said the company was developing such weapons. He recently claimed that Kiev could begin using domestically produced long-range ballistic missiles as early as autumn 2026.

Shtilerman said several facilities producing solid-fuel rocket engines had been established in Ukraine. Some production sites have reportedly been duplicated to preserve output if individual plants are struck by Russian forces.

Fire Point says it is currently working on two ballistic missile projects, designated FP-7 and FP-9. Published specifications indicate that the FP-7 is expected to have a range of up to 200 kilometres and is being developed as an analogue of the Soviet Tochka and Tochka-U missile systems.

The longer-range FP-9 is designed to strike targets at distances exceeding 800 kilometres.

Experts have suggested that Ukrainian engineers may have drawn on research and technical work conducted by the Yuzhnoye Design Bureau. Since the mid-2010s, the bureau has been developing the Sapsan operational-tactical missile system, also known as Grom-2, which was previously presented as a Ukrainian counterpart to Russia’s Iskander system.