The chief executive of Ukraine's leading arms company says Kyiv has "learned the hard way" that military strength is an essential precursor to diplomacy, describing deep strikes into Russian territory as a core tenet of the country's pressure campaign.
Missile and drone maker Fire Point, which says it currently facilitates more than 60% of Ukraine's so-called "long-range sanctions," has scaled exponentially since being founded in response to Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022.
The defense-tech startup produced around 200 drones that year, a feat CEO Iryna Terekh described as a "huge achievement."
Since then, the Kyiv-headquartered startup has swelled from three founding members to more than 7,000 employees and Terekh says it "looks realistic" to expect the team to produce more than 100,000 drones by year-end.
"We have to understand that we live, unfortunately, in the same timeline with a completely barbarous, imperialistic neighbor and we can expect whatever," Fire Point CEO Iryna Terekh told CNBC by video call.
