UAH 107.4 billion from the state budget. At least three announced ballistic missile deadlines that have already passed. A trademark with a double-meaning name, registered to the CEO personally. While Iryna Terekh jokes about "MILFtech" and Denys Shtilerman keeps moving deadlines, civil society is asking a question that no longer sounds funny: where are the promised long-range weapons? Who will answer for Fire Point's promises — and in what context does the name Mindich come up in this story? Details in StopCor's new analysis.
In late September, when a Russian strike destroyed the building of the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, and the capital itself, according to The Guardian's assessment, had effectively become a frontline city, Ukraine's largest private manufacturer of long-range weapons found itself at the center of a new public scandal over… the MILFtech trademark.
The creation of merchandise and a community with an ambiguous name was announced by Iryna Terekh, co-founder of the defense-tech company Fire Point, in a vlog by marketer Andriy Fedoriv.
As TSN notes, Terekh's initiative triggered a wave of outrage online and in the Ukrainian sector. The harshest criticism was aimed at the project's provocative name and messaging, as well as the absence of the promised ballistic missiles.
Journalist Olena Trybushna devoted an episode of her video blog "Ye Pytannia" ("There Are Questions") to the topic — "to record the state of affairs and check it against the promises."
Why Is This Not Just a Bad Joke?
Fire Point is not a garage startup. According to a document published by Vitaliy Shabunin, head of the Anti-Corruption Action Center, on his Telegram channel, in the last year and a half alone the company received UAH 107.4 billion from the state budget — and that is for drones alone.
MP Yaroslav Zhelezniak, sharing the post, suggested that the actual amounts may be significantly higher.
Terekh herself stated in comments to CBS News (republished by UA.News) that around 60% of Ukrainian strikes on Russia in 2026 were carried out with Fire Point weapons.
When a company of this scale manages wartime budget funds and effectively determines whether the country can strike deep into enemy territory, its promises and the public conduct of its executives stop being purely a matter of reputation. They become a matter of national defense capability and public oversight.
A Trademark… for Weapons and Ammunition
Terekh talked about MILFtech in Andriy Fedoriv's video blog: Fire Point employs around 7,500 people, no more than 15% of them women, and the name was "thrown out there" by a friend who is currently serving in the military.
"This analogy lifted my mood, and I decided that everyone should know about it now," Terekh explained.
In the same interview, she spoke enthusiastically about the company's merch — large A3 notebooks handed out to engineers.
The legal side is even more interesting. As UA.NEWS found, application m202603938 was filed on March 2, 2026. The applicant is not the company, but Iryna Terekh personally. The list of classes covers not only educational services and clothing, but also weapons, ammunition, missile systems and drones. Could Ms. Terekh use the brand for products outside the Fire Point structure? There is no answer yet.
The online reaction, as journalist Olena Trybushna sums up in her video blog, was not about the slang but about the absence of missiles (we quote): "there's merch, but still no missiles."
Vitaliy Shabunin called the initiative "at the very least a very bad joke," Mykhailo Tkach saw in it a chasm between those who profit from the war and those who suffer from it, and serviceman Serhiy Marchenko wrote that people are tired of dying amid promises and PR while there is merch instead of mass-produced ballistic missiles.
"Summer," "Autumn," "Late Autumn"
The main part of Trybushna's video blog deals with the timeline and a check of the dates. In early June, the journalist recalls, Shtilerman promised in an interview with "Batsman" to begin test launches at Moscow in the summer, "at the latest in early autumn," and to build about a dozen test missiles. In late July, in an interview with Gordon, he was already talking about autumn but could not name a month: according to him, it depends on engine tests.
On September 10, at the MSPO exhibition, Terekh (as quoted by LIGA.net) said that the FP-7 (300 km) was "weeks, not months" away from combat use. As for the FP-9 (850 km), she suggested that because of the lack of testing ranges in Ukraine, it might have to be tested "directly on the enemy." In her latest interview with Fedoriv, there is a new target: the short-range ballistic missile is "you could say, ready" and is going through codification, while the long-range one, which is supposed to reach Moscow, will come "by the end of autumn."
Even earlier, according to Yuriy Kasyanov in a column for RegioNews, Shtilerman promised that the FP-7 would be adopted into service by the end of 2025. Terekh explains the delays by saying that the company has been developing ballistic missiles for less than two years, whereas similar projects have "never taken less than 15." A caveat: in wartime, combat use may not be made public. However, at the time of publication, the editorial team had found no public confirmation of such use.
Meanwhile, the European part of the project is also getting more expensive: the Danish solid rocket fuel plant, according to reports by Kurs citing Iryna Terekh, has been postponed to the end of 2027, and its budget has grown from €50 million to more than €150 million.
From Concrete Planters to Missiles: Who Is Iryna Terekh?
As the dev.ua portal reported earlier, Terekh did not complete her studies at the Kyiv National University of Construction and Architecture (KNUBA); in 2014 she founded TEREKH.group (Sira Rechovyna LLC) — a producer of architectural concrete and street furniture — and is the beneficial owner of four companies.
One of them, Stellar Jet LLC, according to the outlet, earned more than UAH 400 million in revenue in 2024. Terekh took charge of the Fire Point structure in 2023 with the task of producing 30 drones a month.
Of course, such a rapid and nonlinear career is not in itself a violation. But the same dev.ua article recalls that in 2025 NABU (the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine) was reportedly examining possible overpricing of FP-1 components, and Terekh herself, as Focus reports, publicly promised to publish the results of a Deloitte audit.
Are the audit's findings already known, and have they been made public? The StopCor editorial team has sent a corresponding request to Fire Point.
Denys Shtilerman: Chief Designer and Chief Spokesman
If Terekh is the face of the company, then co-founder and chief designer Denys Shtilerman appears to be its chief generator of controversy.
Trybushna recalls that in an interview with The Atlantic he said that in the spring of 2024 he asked Tymur Mindich to help obtain access to classified Soviet missile blueprints from Ukrainian archives.
"I didn't care how exactly it would be done," the outlet quotes him as saying.
At the same time, Fire Point's executives deny any influence by Mindich over the company. At a session of the Temporary Investigative Commission (TSK), according to NV.UA, Shtilerman said that he had been to Mindich's apartment about 15 times, and that Mindich had offered to buy 50% of the company, but no deal took place.
In late August, StopCor drew attention to a comment from the account "Denys Shtilierman" under a post by Taras Chmut about the tragedy in Mylia: "You are a scoundrel and a liar."
In September, StopCor also reported on Viktor Kurtev, who has a conviction for forging a document and publicly defended Fire Point amid media scandals. In the summer, together with Shtilerman, he presented awards to young physics students, and later shared "inside information" with the media about the FP-9 production timeline. No legal ties were found between Fire Energy, which Kurtev heads, and Fire Point. But how was an "energy expert" authorized to comment on the readiness schedules of strategic weapons?
What's Next?
The StopCor editorial team has sent an information request to Fire Point's press office with the following questions:
- Why is the MILFtech trademark registered to Iryna Terekh personally rather than to the company, and for what purpose does the application cover the classes of weapons, ammunition, and missile systems? Is the initiative funded by Fire Point?
- Has the FP-7 been used in combat, and what are the current timelines for the FP-7 and FP-9? What is the reason for moving the test launches in Moscow from "summer — early autumn" to "the end of autumn"?
- Does the company confirm the figure of UAH 107.4 billion received from the state budget over 1.5 years, and how much of that was received for ballistic and anti-ballistic programs?
- Have the results of the Deloitte audit announced in autumn 2025 been published?
We will publish the answers as soon as we receive them.
Women in the defense industry genuinely need support, and this is a real issue. However, when a company with billions in state contracts responds to a public demand for missiles with a double-entendre joke, the discussion naturally shifts from gender equality to financial accountability. The new deadline for the readiness of "long-range sanctions against Russia" — the end of autumn — has been noted. We are watching.