Ukraine just unveiled its new Flamingo cruise missile, with a reported range of more than 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles).
Able to fly farther than most of Kyiv’s long-range drones, Flamingo could strike Russia’s Arctic bases near Murmansk and penetrate beyond the Ural Mountains into the Asian parts of Russia.
President Volodymyr Zelensky has boasted about Ukraine’s missile development for months, but has remained tight-lipped on details.
Though specifications remain undisclosed, photographer Efrem Lukatsky photographed the missile at arms maker Fire Point’s assembly line on Aug. 14, state-linked outlet United24 Media reported.
Lukatsky said the missile is designed with a range exceeding 3,000 kilometers (1,864 miles), and the outlet said the missile has entered serial production.
The outlet also highlighted Flamingo’s resemblance to the FP-5 system, showcased earlier this year by UK-based Milanion Group at the IDEX-2025 defense expo in Abu Dhabi.
A brochure released by Milanion in February described the weapon as a “ground launch cruise missile – unmanned aerial system” – a potential nod to Kyiv’s “drone missile” developments.
It is unclear if the resemblance is related to earlier bilateral agreements between Kyiv and London on missile procurements.
The missile has an on-paper range of 3,000 kilometers, a flight attitude up to 5 kilometers (16,400 feet), a maximum flight time of 4 hours, as well as a maximum speed of 950 kilometers per hour (590 miles per hour) and a cruise speed of 859-900 kilometers per hour (528–559 miles per hour).
The characteristics would place it in the category of subsonic cruise missiles, similar to the US Tomahawk missiles – which have a shorter range at up to 2,500 kilometers (1,553 miles); Cruise missiles with a similar range include Russia’s air-launched Kh-101/Kh-555 missiles.
As such, the FP-5 stands in a unique niche of being a subsonic strategic cruise missile that’s ground-launched.
The FP-5 – with a maximum takeoff weight of 6,000 kilograms (13,228 pounds) is also reportedly capable of carrying a 1,000-kilogram (2,204-pound) payload – more than the 400-kilogram (882-pound) payload of Russia’s Kh-555.
Similar to most drones, the missile is guided by a combination of GPS signals and an inertial navigation system (INS) – with the addition of a controlled reception pattern antenna (CRPA) to prevent GPS-signal jamming.
The stated production capacity is 50 missiles per month.
How far is long range?
If the Flamingo is an analogue to the FP-5, with a range of 3,000 kilometers, it can hit targets beyond the Ural Mountains, well into Siberia.
Assuming the missile is launched around the northeast city of Kharkiv by the Russian border, all major Russian cities would fall within range – including Moscow and St. Petersburg – and it would extend as far as Yekaterinburg and Omsk in the Urals and western Siberia, while Novosibirsk, the largest city in Siberia, would lie just beyond reach.
The missile’s range should still be sufficient to reach all targets – including airfields, oil refineries, and troop concentrations – throughout the European part of Russia.
However, since cruise missiles rarely fly in a perfectly straight line, their effective range is likely lower.
That said, most targets are already within range of Kyiv’s long-range drones, as demonstrated by the 2024 attack on an oil refinery 1,500 kilometers (932 miles) from the Ukrainian border in the Kirov region, or a recent attack on another oil refinery in Russia’s Komi Republic, 2,000 kilometers (1,243 miles) from Ukraine.
What the missile would likely bring to the table is a heavier, potentially specialized warhead that could penetrate bunkers or destroy runways – and serve as an alternative to Western long-range weapons, whose supplies are becoming increasingly uncertain.