Iryna Terekh is 34 and an architect from Irpin. Before the full-scale war she built patios, made outdoor furniture and developed a business producing high-quality architectural concrete. Today she is a co-founder of a company that turns out long-range weapons.

She told CBS News about it.

A town that lost seventy per cent of itself

In early 2022 russian troops occupied Irpin. According to the estimate cited in the report, about 70 per cent of the buildings in the town were destroyed. So this is about a profession in which a person designed space, and about a town where that space was gone.

In the autumn of the same year Terekh, together with Denys Shtilerman and Yehor Skalyha, founded Fire Point. Shtilerman had experience in military engineering; Skalyha had been a film producer. The idea was simple: build long-range attack drones as an answer to the shahed and geran drones.

From twenty a month to four hundred a day

They started with about twenty drones a month. By 2024 they had reached mass production, and now, according to Terekh, the company turns out 300 to 400 long-range drones every day.

In June a Fire Point cruise missile hit a target more than a thousand miles away — roughly 1,600 kilometres. Terekh calls it the longest strike ever carried out by a cruise missile in the history of combat.

The next step is a ballistic missile. The company is finishing its development and expects deployment within a few months. Its advantage lies in a higher trajectory: such a target is harder to intercept. The CBS News report notes that once this weapon appears, moscow will be within range.

Earlier we reported that the Banksy mural in Irpin was closed off with a fence, and the city council explained what happens next.

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