The meeting of the Supreme Commander's Headquarters on May 2, 2025 focused not on frontline reports, but on a question that Kyiv had long kept under wraps: its own missile program. President Zelensky called the acceleration of ballistic and anti-ballistic system production a "main task" and publicly announced for the first time who would be responsible for it to partners.
What the Headquarters decided
According to Zelensky, the meeting discussed not strategic concepts, but specific steps. As reported by NV, the president stated that "the task is to maximize the acceleration of creating Ukrainian ballistic systems" and that domestic long-range capabilities are an "understandable and effective guarantee of Ukraine's security."
Zelensky instructed the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Defense to intensify work with international partners to attract additional funding. The wording is important: responsibility for finding funds was placed not on Ukroboronprom or the President's Office, but on two departments with institutional ties to the West.
"Investments in Ukrainian production are investments in forcing Russia to peace, and partners must feel this as our shared achievement with them."
President of Ukraine Volodymyr Zelensky, May 2, 2025
Context: where the program stands
The Headquarters meeting took place against the backdrop of concrete progress in production. As Strategic Industries Minister Herman Smetanin noted back in April, the output of ballistic missiles and the long-range version of Neptune has reached a level sufficient for regular combat use. However, there is a significant gap between "regular use" and "mass production that changes the balance."
In parallel, Zelensky stated back in April that Ukraine is negotiating with several countries on a joint anti-ballistic system. According to him, the goal is to create its own anti-ballistic system within a year, although he acknowledged: it is "realistic, but very difficult." The main limiting factor was named as access to key components, rather than lack of engineering expertise.
A separate track is the placement of production capacity abroad. As Zelensky told journalists in a May conversation, partners will finance joint projects located on their territories, and after the war will gain access to technologies. These production facilities, according to the president, should become operational this year.
- Ballistics: transition from flight tests to combat use confirmed; mass production is the next milestone
- Anti-ballistic system: negotiations with several countries, timeline approximately one year; Fire Point company announced a budget alternative to Patriot by the end of 2027
- Funding: three channels—state budget, enterprises' own funds, partners' contributions; specific amounts are not disclosed
What remains off camera
Neither after the Headquarters meeting nor in subsequent statements has there been any public mechanism for monitoring the implementation of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense's assignments: no deadlines, no performance criteria, no names of responsible persons. Deputy Head of the President's Office Pavlo Palisa previously said that the appearance of Ukraine's own ballistics "will not lead to critical changes in the war," but is a "serious argument"—and that such weapons are possessed by only a few countries in the world.
If the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defense attract external funding by year-end for specific production lines, the Headquarters' decision will gain measurable weight. If not, it will remain a public signal of intent, but not capability.
