KYIV — President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine had fired a domestically made ballistic missile in combat for the first time. It is a breakthrough in Kyiv’s push to field a powerful weapon that Russia has used against Ukraine to devastating effect.
Zelensky trumpeted the launch with a post on social media late Thursday that included a video of a missile blasting off. “Ukrainian tactical ballistics. FP-7. First combat use,” he wrote. The post did not say what was targeted, and Zelensky’s office declined to comment.
The FP-7, produced by the Ukrainian company Fire Point, is a short-range missile that can reach only border regions inside Russia. The weapon is not expected to significantly shift what has become an escalating air war between the two countries.
But Fire Point is also developing a larger ballistic missile, the FP-9, that would be able to reach Moscow and strategic defense industry targets. Ukraine says that missile, which analysts think has a greater potential to change the dynamics of the war, is expected to be ready later this year.
Ballistic missiles stand at the top of the weapons hierarchy for air attacks. They are hard to intercept, fly quickly to targets, and can carry a heavier payload than most of the exploding drones that Ukraine now uses.
The launch of the FP-7 returns Ukraine to a small group of countries producing ballistic missiles.
Decades ago, when Ukraine was part of the Soviet Union, it had a large military aerospace industry. Factories there built several models of intercontinental ballistic missiles. Those production lines were shut down after the Soviet breakup in 1991, and the industry has since mostly withered.
Russia has been firing an array of ballistic missiles at Ukraine since the start of its full invasion of the country in 2022, including an intermediate-range missile designed for nuclear explosives but fired with dummy warheads.
Ukraine has fired US-made ATACMS tactical ballistic missiles at Russian forces in occupied areas of Ukraine and into areas of Russia close to the border.
The FP-7, the missile whose launch Ukraine announced on Thursday, has a range of 155 miles and can carry a payload weighing 440 pounds, according to Fire Point.
Military analysts say that a likely use for the missile will be counterattacks on Russian missile launchers, rather than strikes on strategic targets such as defense factories inside Russia.
“It will be a specialized weapon,” said Serhiy Hrabsky, a retired colonel and a commentator on the war for the Ukrainian media. “Ukraine cannot produce dozens of them daily.”
But the missile could help tip the economics of the missile and drone war more in Ukraine’s favor. Targeting Russian missile launchers is more economical than trying to shoot down Russia’s ballistic missiles in flight with US-made Patriot interceptors, Hrabsky said. Patriot interceptors cost millions of dollars each and are in short supply globally.
Fire Point has said it is restarting ballistic missile production in Ukraine from scratch. It says it is relying on new technologies adapted from modern consumer goods, such as a type of carbon fiber originally intended to make bicycle frames.
The war has increasingly turned to the skies as Ukraine has essentially fought Russia to a standstill on the ground.
Russian missile and drone strikes are intended to cripple Ukraine’s economy and raise the cost to European allies of supporting the country. The attacks also aim to demoralize the population with electrical blackouts.
Ukraine’s own long-range strikes, largely with drones, have focused on oil refineries, oil ports, and oil tankers to harm Russia’s economy.
Russia now has the upper hand in the drone and missile war, launching far more of both types of long-range weapons than the numbers of exploding drones that Ukraine has fired back.
In Ukraine, the FP-7 has been nicknamed the Pelican. On Sept. 20, Zelensky said in a statement that Ukraine had fired a weapon called the Pelican into Russia. Confusion followed as Zelensky’s office later said he had been referring to a drone, not a missile.
Fire Point declined to comment after that launch. It has referred to its ballistic missiles as “ballistic drones” for legal reasons, because Ukraine is a party to a Cold War-era pact, the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, that limits the range of ground-launched missiles.
Russia and the United States have withdrawn from the treaty. Zelensky’s post Thursday referred to a use of “tactical ballistics,” seemingly distinguishing the weapon from more destructive strategic missiles.
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.