In this secret missile factory, Ukraine is ramping up its domestic arms industry

BBC:

We’re driven blindfolded to a secret location where Ukraine is making one of its latest weapons.

We’re told to turn off our phones – such is the secrecy around the production of Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missile.

For Ukraine, dispersing and hiding the production of weapons like this is key to survival. Two factories belonging to the company that make it – Fire Point – have already been hit.

Inside the one we’re visiting we’re told not to film any features such as pillars, windows or ceilings. We’re also asked not to show the faces of workers on the assembly line – where Flamingo missiles are at various stages of completion.

Even under fire, Ukraine is ramping up its arms industry. President Volodymyr Zelensky says the country now produces more than 50% of the weapons it uses on the front line. Almost its entire inventory of long-range weapons is domestically made.

At the start of the war Ukraine mostly relied on its old Soviet-era arsenal. Western military support helped modernise the country’s armed forces, but it now leads much of the world in developing unmanned systems – like robots and drones.

Now, domestically produced cruise missiles are adding to Ukraine’s long-range capability.