Ukrainian Defense Minister Fedorov wrote in the same post confirming his departure that Ukraine had conducted a successful ballistic missile test on 14 July, developed within the Defense Ministry's zone of responsibility. "Symbolically," the same day the government fell, he said.
"Symbolically, on the day the government resigned, we conducted a successful test of ballistics developed in the MoD's zone of responsibility," he wrote.
Two ballistic tracks, and the clue points to Sapsan
Ukraine is running its ballistic missile development on more than one track. The reference points to a program that Ukraine has been careful to name for months.
Defense outlet Militarnyi noted that the phrasing suggests it is not the FP-7 or FP-9 ballistic missiles from the private firm Fire Point, and that Fedorov may have meant the Sapsan operational-tactical system, whose serial production reportedly began in 2025.
The Sapsan (also known as Hrim-2) was developed by the state design bureau KB Pivdenne and traces back to a pre-war export program for Saudi Arabia. Zelenskyy confirmed on 9 December 2025 that Ukraine had begun using domestically produced Sapsan missiles in combat.
It carries a 480-kg warhead, more than double the payload of US-supplied ATACMS, and reportedly reached 5.2 Mach in testing. Zelenskyy said Russians often mistake Sapsan strikes for Neptune cruise-missile attacks: "And let them keep thinking that."
The other track is Fire Point, the private firm behind the Flamingo cruise missile, which is developing the FP-7 and FP-9 ballistic missiles as a cheaper analog to ATACMS.
Fire Point's chief designer has put the FP-9 at 855 km range with an 800-kg warhead, priced at half what ATACMS costs. However, Fire Point is a private developer.
Program is already operating in combat conditions
Whatever Fedorov meant, Ukraine's ballistic missiles are past the stage of pure experiment. Russia's Defense Ministry announced on 30 June that it had shot down a Ukrainian long-range ballistic missile.
A successful test on 14 July is a data point on a curve that is already bending toward accuracy, not a lab result waiting years for deployment.
