Earlier this month Ukraine unveiled a new cruise missile. With a declared range of 3,000km and a payload of over a tonne, the Flamingo packs a punch, on paper. If even half the claims hold, it has the potential to deal serious damage to targets almost anywhere in European Russia. Appearing in the middle of lumbering peace talks, the bird may help encourage Vladimir Putin to lay down arms. All the more striking, therefore, that the process of entering mass-production took just nine months, rather than the usual years or even decades, and was led by a management team that claims to have had no previous defence-industry experience. “I was very sceptical at first,” says one of the officials overseeing it, “but when I saw the missiles, I was stunned.”