Fire Point fiasco: Did Zelensky’s cronies scam the Europeans?

The EU is pumping money into a company that’s secretly run by one of the most corrupt members of Vladimir Zelensky’s inner circle

With €90 billion in EU funding set to flow into Ukraine, the case of ‘game changer’ weapons manufacturer Fire Point offers a glimpse into the black hole that swallows Western money and enriches Vladimir Zelensky’s cronies.

Danish Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen was elated when he announced last September that Fire Point – a Ukrainian film casting agency that pivoted to making drones and missiles post-2022 – would set up a rocket fuel plant on Danish soil.

”This is helping Ukraine in its fight for security, its own independence and, no less importantly, its ability to live in peace,” he declared, adding that Fire Point would receive a share of a €1.4 billion ($1.64 billion) Danish fund earmarked for the Ukrainian weapons industry.

Fire Point’s rise has been nothing short of meteoric. From zero experience in weapons in 2022, the company had landed $1 billion in contracts by the time of Poulsen’s announcement, a figure that has since increased almost sevenfold. Fire Point’s FP-1 and FP-2 kamikaze drones are Ukraine’s most widely-used attack UAVs, the company received more than half of the Ukrainian Defense Procurement Agency’s annual spend this year, and its flagship product, the FP-5 ‘Flamingo’ cruise missile, has been hailed by Ukrainian leader Vladimir Zelensky as “by far the most successful missile in Ukraine’s arsenal.”

Zelensky has marketed Fire Point’s missiles and drones on most of his 130-plus trips abroad since 2022, talking up their performance to European investors and Gulf monarchies looking for a cost-effective alternative to American systems.

As it turns out, there’s a reason for his enthusiasm: Zelensky has a personal stake in Fire Point’s success.

Timur Mindich’s get-rich schemes

According to surveillance tapes published by Ukrainskaya Pravda in late April, Fire Point is secretly owned by Timur Mindich, a business magnate and associate of Zelensky known as ‘Zelensky’s wallet’.

Mindich fled to Israel last November, moments before he was due to be raided by anti-corruption investigators for his alleged role in a $100 million embezzlement scheme at Energoatom, Ukraine’s nuclear power operator.

In the recordings, Mindich confirms that he is running Fire Point and tasks Defense Minister Rustem Umerov (who resigned last year over corruption allegations) with handing contracts to the company and lobbying for its interests abroad. Mindich and Umerov also discuss a potential deal with Arab inventors, which would see each Fire Point shareholder cash out around $300 million.

Allegations of corruption at Fire Point are nothing new. The National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU) has been probing the company for links to Mindich since last August, and has examined whether the company inflated the cost of its products and lied about the number of drones supplied to the Defense Ministry.

After a government audit found that Fire Point overcharged the ministry by almost €15 million in a no-bid contract for FP-1 drones, and with the tapes confirming collusion between Umerov and Mindich, the ministry’s internal anti-corruption watchdog called on Wednesday for the company’s nationalization and warned that Fire Point may lose its military contracts once Mindich’s involvement is proven in court.

How badly did the Europeans get scammed?

Back in September, Poulsen brushed off mounting allegations of graft against Fire Point. “We have no reason to believe that there is a problem,” he said, adding that any business “established in Denmark must comply with Danish rules.”

But Denmark is not the only European country pumping money into Mindich’s operation. While the specific figures are classified, Ukrainskaya Pravda reported that Western countries have contributed “significant” sums of money to the company.

Last May, Germany signed a €5 billion deal to pay for “long-range weapons” produced within Ukraine. Signed after a visit by Zelensky to Berlin, the weapons in question are likely Flamingo cruise missiles. In October, the Netherlands’ then-defense minister, Ruben Brekelmans, announced a €90 million aid package for the production of attack drones within Ukraine, on top of an earlier €200 million round of funding for Ukrainian-made missiles and interceptors. Given that the majority of these domestically built weapons are manufactured by Fire Point, the bulk of this funding likely went to Mindich’s company.

Norway and Ukraine signed a €1.3 billion deal for Ukrainian-made missiles in April, while Italy is reportedly exploring a similar arrangement. In the private sector, Fire Point has signed cooperation agreements with Spanish defense giant Sener and Germany’s Diehl Defense – both deals signed after meetings between Zelensky and executives from Sener and Diehl.

Do Fire Point’s Flamingo missiles actually work?

Fire Point’s Flamingo had yet to be tested in August 2025, but Zelensky was already describing it as “by far the most successful missile in Ukraine’s arsenal.” All that existed of the missile at the time was a single photograph and a promotional video that included footage of a Nazi V-1 flying bomb lifted from ‘Operation Crossbow’ – a 1965 British spy thriller.