Flamingos and Ukraine’s Developing Ability To Conduct Long-Range Strikes

Much to the vexation of the Ukrainian high command, the supply of long-range munitions from the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) has been a story of attaining advanced weapons with restrictions.  These conditions of use have been political as much as technical; for instance, the Biden administration initially limited Ukraine’s use of Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) missiles to only Russian-occupied Ukrainian territory in 2023. From a purely technical aspect, the American ATACMs and the Anglo-French Storm Shadow are both short-range tactical missiles with ranges of 300 and 250 kilometres, respectively. Furthermore, German Chancellor Merz has indefinitely delayed the provision of Taurus missiles. The result of such caution by NATO is that Ukraine has a significant deficit in terms of its ability to engage in what Hoffman describes as Long-Range Strikes (LRS) in Russian territory.

Hoffman defines LRS as the use of weapons “to create strategic-level effects”, namely the ability to deter an adversary from a certain action or to convince them to cease a current policy. LRS can fulfil four distinct strategic forms: (1) counter-population (bombing cities), (2) strategic interdiction (destroying economic infrastructure), (3) counter-leadership (targeting political leaders), and (4) counterforce (striking concentrations of military personnel).

While usually literature on LRS through the use of strategic weapons has emphasised the use of nuclear weapons, there is a growing body of work that looks at strategic weapons in a conventional sense. Here, weapons such as cruise missiles and long-range one-way attack drones take centre stage. Yet, what is meant by a “strategic attack”? According to Hoffman,  what is most important to bear in mind is that “a weapon, a capability, a project, is strategic only in its consequences”. Over the course of the Russo-Ukrainian war, Ukraine has proven capable of conducting LRS, striking targets at range, such as Operation Spiderweb (Ukrainian: Операція Павутина) in June of last year. With Hoffman’s framework of LRS, let’s examine other potential targets for Ukrainian LRS. Just as in Operation Spiderweb, military installations such as airfields and command and control facilities first come to mind; however, there are other potential targets for Ukrainian LRS outside of military infrastructure. This article seeks to address what potential Ukraine has to conduct LRS in Russia, and can such strikes with new weapons have the strategic consequences Hoffman identifies with LRS?

Recently, Russian oil refineries have been struck with long-range attack drones from Ukraine. The purpose of such strikes is to threaten a vital source of hard currency to Moscow, as Russia is a large exporter of hydrocarbons. Small drones such as the FP-1 have proven capable of evading Russian air defence, yet their size limits the explosive payload they can deliver. The result has been limited and likely repairable damage to Russian hydrocarbon facilities. Ukraine has an interest in causing more substantial damage to such targets; to do this, a larger weapon is called for. This is most likely the purpose for which the new Ukrainian-produced FP-5 “flamingo” cruise missiles are designed.

At first glance, the Flamingo is an intermediate-range cruise missile which some media outlets have described as a “junkyard missile” due to its rather improvised design. The major components of the missile (the engine and warhead), are repurposed from a jet trainer aircraft and a soviet air-dropped warhead. Flamingo is a large missile, with a wingspan of 6 meters and a warhead weighing over a ton. The manufacturer, Fire Point, has claimed the weapon has an operational range of 3,000 kilometres.

While this sounds impressive, it is important to note that the weapon’s size, while giving it the capacity for a large warhead, does give it certain vulnerabilities. A larger missile produces a larger radar signature, meaning it is certainly easier for Russian air defence assets to track and destroy flamingos midair than an American Tomahawk missile. Flamingo missiles appear not to be an especially technologically sophisticated weapon; it is likely not capable of dodging Russian air defence or Electronic Warfare (EW) assets despite having some EW-resistant properties[i]. This suggests that Flamingos are likely to suffer significant combat losses.

Yet, here lies the certain DIY logic of the system’s design. Given its low cost of half a million dollars and simple design, Flamingo is likely optimised for wartime production, unlike Western designs such as Tomahawk or Taurus. Flamingos appear to be based on the concept of “affordable mass,” meaning they are weapons that are cheap enough to be procured in large numbers to overwhelm Russia’s air defence assets. Flamingos’ claimed range of 3,000 kilometres (if accurate) gives Ukraine a large selection of targets. Between Moscow and the front line (just over half the range of flamingo missiles), there is a large number of significant economic and military targets for Ukraine to strike.

According to the Caspian Policy Centre, a large number of Russia’s major oil refineries are located within Western Russia and are well within the operational range of flamingo missiles. Consequently, flamingos offer Ukraine the strategic autonomy to damage oil refineries substantially without interference from NATO partners imposing terms of use or delaying their delivery. The crux lies in production; if Ukraine can produce a significant number of flamingos and fire several missiles in a “flock” at a target (such as an oil refinery in western Russia), the cost of losing a high number of Flamingos to land a devastating hit would be worth it. One can say the Ukrainian LSR reflects a play-by-the-numbers strategy as the Russians have to be lucky all the time; Ukraine just has to be lucky once with one flamingo of a “flock” landing a successful hit.

Another angle to the production of flamingos is that the price tag of 500,000 USD per unit compares very favourably with the more common air defence assets of the Russian air defence forces. According to the Missile Defence Advocacy Alliance (MDAA), the cost of a single 48N6 interceptor missile fired from S-300/S-400 interceptors can be as much as 1.3 million USD. Cheap Flamingos, therefore, may serve as a cost-effective way to strain the stockpile of Russian air defence munitions and pull S-300/400 batteries away from the front to defend key infrastructure in western Russia. While other shorter-range and cheaper systems, such as BUKs, may be used to protect against Flamingos, the argument still stands – for every BUK system taken away from the front to defend western Russia, that is one more system diverted away from Russian ground troops that need them.

While Flamingos would serve as a cost-effective method to conduct LRS on Russian economic and military assets, the crux of the question is in Ukraine’s ability to produce them in large numbers. Design-wise, this is very possible for Ukraine to achieve, as the cost of a single missile is comparatively low, and reportage suggests that large-scale production will not be an insurmountable obstacle for Ukraine. In addition, given the widely documented issues the Russian air force has had in this conflict, it does seem that some large-scale Flamingo strikes may ultimately prove successful against vulnerable economic assets.

Would flamingos qualify as a strategic weapon? Yes, that much is clear, given the range and the likely use of flamingos. Its use of striking Russian oil refineries would fall under Hoffman’s framework for LRS as a strategic interdiction; the destruction of important economic assets. However, whether it would be successful as an LRS weapon is a much more difficult question, as flamingos are a very recent addition to Ukraine’s arsenal. Would such strikes on Russian oil infrastructure produce the strategic consequences which Hoffman defines strategic weapons as having? This is much more difficult to say definitively at this time, yet in recent weeks, Ukraine has successfully launched a strike on a large refinery close to Moscow and launched flamingos against targets in Russian-occupied territory.

Yet, reportedly, the economic effect of the damage done to Russian oil refineries so far (with much smaller drones) has been significant, leaving Russian civilians to queue at petrol stations to fuel their cars. How far such strikes could limit Russia’s ability to balance foreign and domestic demand may eventually lead to significant economic consequences. Flamingos with their heavy warheads are capable of causing significant or irreparable damage to Russian hydrocarbon infrastructure. Successful strikes on oil refineries would seriously harm Russia’s ability to sell its oil abroad. This, in time, may indeed lead to a contraction of Russia’s ability to pursue its war aims, as its ability to import materials for weapons production would weaken with each successful strike by a flock of flamingos.

[i] NATO defines Electronic Warfare (EW) is the use of the electromagnetic spectrum for military proposes. In this context it would refer to the ability of Russian military to disrupt the guidance systems of flamingo missiles.