Merch exists, missiles do not? What is known about Shtilerman’s and Terekh’s promises and where did 107,4 billion UAH go

107,4 billion hryvnias from the budget. At least three announced deadlines for ballistics that have already passed. A trademark with a two-digit name registered to the CEO personally. While Iryna Terekh jokes about “MILFtech,” Denys Shtilerman shifts deadlines, and civil society asks a question that is no longer funny: where is the promised long-range weapon? Who will be held accountable for FirePoint’s promises — and in what context does the surname Mindich appear in this story? Details in StopCor’s new analysis.

At the end of 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, had effectively become a frontline city, the largest private producer of long-range weapons in Ukraine found itself at the center of a new public scandal over… the MILFtech trademark.

The creation of merch and a community with an ambiguous name was reported by co-founder of the defense-tech company Fire Point Iryna Terekh in marketer Andriy Fedoriv’s vlog.

As TSN notes, Terekh’s initiative caused an outcry online and within the Ukrainian sector. The most criticism targeted the project’s provocative name and its communications, as well as the absence of the promised ballistic weapons.

Journalist Olena Trybushna devoted an episode of her video blog “I Have Questions” to the topic — “to document the state of affairs and cross-check the promises.”

Why is this not just an unfortunate joke?

Fire Point is not a garage startup. According to a document published by the head of the Anti-Corruption Center Vitaliy Shabunin on his Telegram channel, in the past year and a half the company received 107,4 billion UAH from the state budget — and that’s only for drones.

Member of Parliament Yaroslav Zheleznyak, sharing the post, suggested that the actual sums could be significantly larger.

Terekh herself told CBS News (reprinted by UA.News) that about 60% of Ukrainian strikes on the Russian Federation in 2026 were carried out with FirePoint weapons.

When a company of that scale manages war budget funds and effectively determines whether the country can strike deep into enemy territory, its promises and the public behavior of its leaders cease to be solely reputational issues. This becomes a matter of the state’s defense capability and public oversight.

The trademark… for weapons and ammunition

Terekh spoke about MILFtech in Andriy Fedoriv’s vlog: Fire Point employs about 7500 people, of whom no more than 15% are women, and the name was “suggested” by a friend who is now serving.

“This analogy lifted my mood, and I decided that everyone should know about it now,” Terekh explained.

In the same interview she enthusiastically described company merch — large A3-format notebooks that they give to engineers.

The legal side is even more interesting. As UA.NEWS discovered, application m202603938 was filed on 2 March 2026. The applicant is not the company but Iryna Terekh personally. The list of classes includes not only educational services and clothing, but also weapons, ammunition, rocket systems, and drones. Could the brand be used by Ms. Terekh for products outside Fire Point’s structure? There is no answer yet.

The network’s reaction, as summarized in her video blog by journalist Olena Trybushna, was not about slang but about the absence of missiles (quote): “there’s merch, but still no missiles.”

Vitaliy Shabunin called the initiative “at the very least a very poor joke,” Mykhailo Tkach saw in it a chasm between war profiteers and victims, and serviceman Serhiy Marchenko wrote that people are tired of dying for promises and PR while there is merch instead of mass-produced ballistics.

“Summer,” “autumn,” “end of autumn”

The main part of Trybushna’s vlog concerns the chronology and verification of dates. In early June, the journalist recalls, Shtilerman told Bazman in an interview that he would start test launches toward Moscow in the summer, “at the latest at the start of autumn,” and produce about a dozen test rockets. At the end of July in an interview with Gordon he spoke of autumn but could not name a month: according to him, it depends on engine tests.

In 10 September at the MSPO exhibition Terekh (quoted by LIGA.net) said that combat use of FP-7 (300 km) was only “weeks, not months” away. Regarding FP-9 (850 km) she suggested that due to a lack of test ranges in Ukraine it might have to be tested “directly on the enemy.” In a recent interview with Fedoriv — a new timeframe: short-range ballistics are “you could say, ready” and are undergoing codification, while the long-range ones intended to reach Moscow are “by the end of autumn.”

Earlier, according to Yuriy Kasyanov in a column for RegioNews, Shtilerman promised to accept FP-7 into service by the end of 2025. Terekh explains the delays by saying the company has been developing ballistics for less than two years, whereas similar developments “never took less than 15.” Caveat: in wartime combat use may not be publicly disclosed. But at the time of publication the editorial team found no public confirmations of such use.

At the same time the European part is getting more expensive: a Danish solid rocket fuel plant, according to Kurs citing Iryna Terekh, was postponed to the end of 2027, and the estimate rose from €50 million to over €150 million.

From concrete planters to rockets: who is Iryna Terekh?

As dev.ua previously wrote, Terekh did not finish her studies at KNUBA, founded TEREKH.group (LLC “Gray Matter”) in 2014 — a manufacturer of architectural concrete and street furniture — and is a beneficiary of four companies.

One of them, LLC “Stellar Jet,” according to the outlet, had revenue of over 400 million UAH in 2024. Terekh headed the Fire Point structure in 2023 with a task to produce 30 drones per month.

Of course, such a rapid and non-linear career is not necessarily a violation. But the same dev.ua piece reminds readers: in 2025 the NABU likely checked possible overpricing of FP-1 components, and Terekh, according to Focus, publicly promised to publish Deloitte’s audit results.

Are those audit conclusions already known and have they been published? The StopCor editorial office sent an appropriate request to Fire Point.

Denys Shtilerman: chief designer and chief spokesman

If Terekh is the company’s face, co-founder and chief designer Denys Shtilerman appears to be the main generator of resonance.

Trybushna recalls: in an interview with The Atlantic he said that in the spring of 2024 he asked Tymur Mindich to help gain access to classified Soviet rocket blueprints from Ukrainian archives.

“I didn’t care how exactly it would be done,” the media quote him as saying.

At the same time Fire Point’s leaders deny any influence of Mindich on the company. At a meeting of the temporary investigative commission, according to NV.UA, Shtilerman said he had been to Mindich’s apartment about 15 times, and Mindich offered to buy 50% of the company, but no deal occurred.

At the end of August StopCor drew attention to a comment from the “Denys Shtilierman” account under Taras Chmut’s post about the tragedy in Mila: “You are a scoundrel and a liar.”

In September StopCor also reported on Viktor Kurtev, who has a conviction for document forgery and publicly defended Fire Point amid media scandals. In the summer he and Shtilerman presented awards to school physics students, and later he shared with the media an “insider” timeline for FP-9. No legal ties between “Fire Energy,” headed by Kurtev, and Fire Point were found. But how was an “energy expert” authorized to comment on schedules for readiness of strategic weapons?

What next?

The StopCor editorial office sent an information request to Fire Point’s press service with the following questions:

1. Why was the MILFtech trademark registered to Iryna Terekh personally and not to the company, and why does the application cover classes for weapons, ammunition, and rocket systems? Is the initiative funded by Fire Point? 2. Has FP-7 been used in combat and what are the current timelines for FP-7 and FP-9? What caused the postponement of test launches toward Moscow from “summer—early autumn” to “end of autumn”? 3. Does the company confirm the amount of 107,4 billion UAH received from the state budget in 1,5, and how much funding was received for ballistic and anti-ballistic programs? 4. Have the Deloitte audit results announced in the autumn of 2025 been published?

We will publish the answers as soon as we receive them.

Women in defense really do need support, and this is a real problem. However, when a company with billion-hryvnia state contracts answers a public question about missiles with a joke with a double-entendre name, the discussion naturally shifts from gender equality to financial accountability. The new deadline for readiness of “long-range sanctions on the Russian Federation” — the end of autumn — has been recorded. We are watching.