Transcription
You spoke of guerrilla war and behind this incredible offensive of the little against the big, forgive me the familiarity, Ukraine against Russia that we have been discussing for several days. We hear these words: agility, innovation. And well, here is concretely the most striking example, the example that undoubtedly best embodies these, these, these qualities. It is the story of an almost artisanal SME that became in a few months, in a few years, a giant of the armaments industry and that in fact provides the decisive weapons for this Ukrainian offensive that we now comment on every evening, this long-range offensive that deprives Russia of its fuel resources, gradually paralyzing the Russian economy like a vise until forcing the confessions, in quotes, of Vladimir Putin, we were talking about it last night. Distinctive feature: the engineer who founded this company was trained in Russia, and that is how he turns the weapon of teaching and know-how against the Russians. So, what does this story teach us? Let us first look at the details. It almost resembles a fairy tale. Here are the essentials with Lucile de Viller. Good evening, Lucile. Good evening, David. Good evening, everyone. So, just before going into detail and to grasp the scale of what the feat of this offensive, which may become famous, represents, you did a little calculation. Yes, we tried to find out how many drones it involved. Well, in this single month of June, by adding up their numbers day after day, we counted 10,000 – 10,000 drones, with sometimes incredible peaks of vehicles launched, for example on June 18 against Moscow with a devastating effect. And it continues these last 24 hours. Another 420 drones at least were launched against about twenty regions, always with the same targets: highways, railway lines, and especially energy facilities. When you step back and look at their trajectory on the maps, it is striking to see that almost all of occupied Russia is swept. There it is, these are the red traces. And so, you looked behind the scenes, what makes this offensive possible, the backstage of this acceleration. Two words emerge: Fire Point. What is it about? Well, Fire Point is the armaments company that is almost single-handedly behind this gigantic operation. To discover it, you had to go to this huge hangar, that of Eurosatory, dedicated to defense and cutting-edge technologies near Paris these last few days. The attraction of this trade show is him. The dreaded Flamingo missile – "flamant rose" in French. Covered in black. It sits proudly in the middle of the booth. It is the weapon of all superlatives. It is bigger than the others, 14 meters long. It flies farther, 3,000 km, twice as far as its American equivalent, the Tomahawk. Distinctive feature: its price, between 500,000 and 800,000 euros. It is three times cheaper than the French SCALP or the British Storm. You also had to look up. This drone called the FP1 is the most used device by the Ukrainian army today. Distinctive feature: it costs less than 50,000 euros. But where does this company FirePoint, which we didn't know, come from? We didn't know this name just a few years ago? Well, this company has two faces, two partners, two stars in Ukraine. The first is a man, Denys Shilterman, 51 years old. What is incredible is that he learned everything in Moscow, at the University of Physics and Technology at age 20. He worked for the Ministry of Defense. Then everything changed in 2014 during the Maidan Revolution; he returns to Ukraine and takes sides for his country. He even changes his last name. And here is his associate, Iryna Terek, 34 years old, from Kharkiv, an architect by training. She joined FireP in 2023 as a production assistant before becoming its CEO. And their story mirrors that of Ukraine. At the beginning of 2023, FireP was just a small SME with 18 employees. Today, a little over 3 years later, it has grown to 6,000 employees. The small workshop in Kyiv has given way to 70 factories located throughout the country, and it goes even further since the first groundbreaking of a factory in Denmark will take place this autumn. FireP, the admiration of everyone. Listen to Xavier Tittlman. It is the first that really succeeded in implementing this industrial revolution. They managed to surround themselves with the best of the historical players by forming partnerships and by seeking out real engineers, including retirees that they put back to work, and by bringing back incredible engineers from abroad, from the United States, Europe, France – I met some directly on site. It was developed by people who do not come from the aeronautics and defense sector. They proposed ideas that were innovative, but when they tried them, it was incredibly fast, effective, and cheaper. The total development of the Flamingo missile, from the initial idea to the first launch, took 9 months. Thank you, Lucile. General Trinquan, you were at Eurosatory, I believe. You observed this missile. You walked through the aisles. You knew this company? Well, I knew about the Flamingo affair, of course, but the company itself, Fire Punch, I didn't know. It's very amusing because you see the missile, it's not pink, and on top, there is a little toy flamingo placed on it. But when you stand next to it, for someone with a bit of historical perspective, I said to myself, "Hey, that's a V-2," you know, the German missile from the end of the war that was supposed to be the wonder weapon and was to be fired at London, right. So a very long, very large missile with the engine on top. Still, 3,000 km range, the navigation system also changes a lot compared to the V-2 because it flies between 20 m and 10,000 m, and it carries a little over a ton of payload. And that is what makes the difference because, you know, when you see strikes, for example, on oil refineries, they send drones with payloads of 50–60 kg, but that sets the oil on fire and that's enough. But when you want to strike a factory – and there's an image we see at one point very clearly where we see the Flamingo passing and hitting a munitions factory – well, a ton of explosive that breaks there, that breaks the factory. And that's really the novelty: the penetration capability, the penetration range, and the payload it can carry. So, when you're not very familiar with these things, you wonder how they do it. Because telling it like that seems simple. But yes, they had 18 employees. There was an engineer who was quite gifted, trained in Moscow, a female CEO who joined him, and then they recruited retirees from all over, engineers, then there are Americans, and hop, they go from 18 employees to 6,000 employees and supply the Ukrainian army with the means to carry out this incredible counteroffensive we are observing today. Everything seems simple; one wonders why others haven't done it. And that's because there are three important criteria. First, the defense of the homeland, which was essential – we saw it clearly: the one who came from Moscow in '14 came to join, even changed his name to become truly Ukrainian. I think Mr. Putin hadn't realized what happened between 2014 and 2024, otherwise he wouldn't have – and 2022, sorry – otherwise he wouldn't have gone to war. The second criterion is innovation, and the third criterion is competition. I will give you an example, and this is not about the Flamingo, it's about drones. The Ukrainian units actually engage in competition. That is, when you have to validate the destructions you've caused on the enemy side, for that you have a drone that attacks and a drone that films. And when you have validated that, you earn points, and the unit with the most points receives the first available drone delivery. So there is a competition, like a game, that has been set up, and it makes all the units compete and seek to innovate and be the best. And in this decentralized system – and necessarily decentralized, as we saw – you can't have just one factory; you have 60, because if one is destroyed, well, there need to be 59 that work. You see, that was a really important driver for the considerable acceleration of its capabilities. Let me clarify my question, Lucas. In France, we talk a lot about reindustrialization, and we said 10 or 15 years ago, the French army, the French arms industry missed the drone revolution. So we're trying to develop drones. It takes years to build a company like that. It seems complicated. Here, in 3 years, hop, 18 employees to 6,000 employees and enough production to launch this incredible offensive. But yes, because they are at war, and we forgot that – we criticized Zelensky a lot at the beginning of the war, remember, for not sending everyone to the front lines, for saying we had to send all young Ukrainians to fight. Zelensky at that time had an idea that is bearing fruit today: he said, "No, no, no, no, we're not going to send everyone." I remember, I was there, you know, there were lines of wait outside the barracks to sign up, and then there was a sorting process. They said, "No, no, you are a doctor, you are not going to the front, you stay at the hospital here." And especially, they looked for engineers, designers, people capable of doing this, to whom they said, "You will wage war in laboratories because we need weapons." It took 4 years, but it works. This system worked for a while, but it nearly broke at one point when the Ukrainians absolutely did not have enough soldiers on the front lines, and we Europeans criticized Zelensky a lot for that, saying, "You must send everyone to war, it's not normal." Except that it is bearing fruit today because this war effort was made both on the front lines and in the rear, with, and we must say it, an ingenuity of the Ukrainians who called upon Ukrainians working abroad, who were in Israel in cutting-edge technology units, who were in the United States, and because it was war and out of a sense of patriotic defense, they returned to Ukraine and said, "OK, we put everything at the service of this industry." But let me give you an example that will seem trivial. There was a large fashion industry in Ukraine. Well, the designers, the fashion designers, they started making camouflage. They were told, "Be useful to the country rather than continuing to make jeans and dresses, make camouflage." And they started making incredible camouflage in a few weeks. And here, it's the same thing on an industrial scale for drones. You still have to see what has been achieved, you know. Can you imagine that they are at Eurosatory, that everyone comes to see them, all the countries come to see them. And moreover, during the war between Russia – we should specify that the trade show, the temple where these images were shot, the defense trade show at Villepinte – but all the countries of the world come to see the Ukrainians at the moment, saying, "So, what do you have in stock?" And they are starting to sell. So they are starting to sell weapons. They sold some to Gulf countries during the war between Iran and the United States. And indeed, well, France is trying to catch up, but we are not at war, so it takes more time, but we are drawing a lot of inspiration from the Ukrainians. I would like to show you to what extent FirePoint, this famous company, becomes a state affair. During the trade show, some clever people again managed to project the FireP logo, the name FirePoint, onto the building of the Russian Embassy in Paris. Well played. The repercussion was enormous, all the way to Russian television where a certain Solovyov said, "Now enough, FireP, we must take them as a target." Listen: "The leadership of the Ukrainian state, Shilterman, who staged this action in Paris against our embassy, started projecting a targeting device there – Fire." There, they are on the list, and the two names he gives – so Montage Louis and Charlemagne – we must specify that the two names he gives are the two leaders of this company FirePoint, who have in fact become among Russia's public enemies number one. So in Ukraine, Géraldine, but of course, they allowed Zelensky to completely reverse the narrative of the war, and that's where it's very strong. There is a very strong psychological and communication dimension in this because, effectively, these small drones allow them to go deep into Russian territory, which was not supposed to happen. They target power plants, refineries, fuel depots. So obviously, that creates local pockets of shortage. In the longer term, that creates logistical supply problems. It's a repair cost for the Russians. So now, we must also see that Russia is very resilient, you know. It has dispersed all its depots in the long term, actually. In the short term, it's not at all decisive. But the narrative is reversed. That in fact shows all of Ukraine's agility in this war. So now, there are also limits: this great success of FireP is also dependent on importing foreign components and foreign financing. But that's where European financing, notably, I think there is a sum of 4 billion out of the 90 that will be released as a priority precisely to help this company, among others. The consequences of what we see in the images: there are them every day now. And look at this new scene sent from Moscow. The fights, the fights over a few liters of gas. Look. "What are you doing? What are you, an idiot? Well, you could have stood. Why are you pulling away, fuck? I'm pulling away from everyone, fuck, you're not the only one in line, fuck. Moron. Go fuck yourself, fuck, get in your car, fuck." Scenes of daily life amid endless lines of vehicles queuing day and night to get their little ration of gas. That was in Moscow, you know; the scenes we saw were not in the far reaches of the country. And these lines of wait, we see them everywhere. Vincent, it's not over because 40% of Russian refining capacities are affected. So it will continue, and the Ukrainians will continue to hammer the oil depots and refineries. What I wanted to say, because Géraldine spoke of agility, there is a man who symbolizes this agility beyond the bosses of FireP. We must be wary of FirePoint. It could also be a bold move by the Ukrainians to create a diversion and so that we don't look too closely at other companies that are part of what are called the top players, the 50 top players, that is, Skyfall, Skyeton, etc., who are FireP's competitors. And so there is a man who symbolizes that, named Robert Brovdi, who is now the head of what is called the Commander of the Unmanned Systems Forces. And we were talking about oligarchs earlier; he was one of the first oligarchs in grains and cereals in Ukraine. He decided to commit and put all his ingenuity and energy into drone operations. Moreover, he is from the Hungarian minority in Ukraine, which is called Magar, and so these drones are called the birds of Magar, and they are the ones that struck Moscow in particular in recent days. And as Dominique said earlier, they compete between the SBU, the GUR, and Robert Brovdi, and each time with their constant feedback and this porosity between the manufacturers and the security services that precisely allows this Ukrainian efficiency. I wanted to ask all three of you. General, you also have the right to speak, but it's true that we heard your opinion yesterday on the subject. That's it, there is a little buzz rising everywhere in the European press that consists of saying, "Could this lead to a destabilization of Vladimir Putin because of the discontent of the Russians, especially Russian women?" It's true we have heard a lot from Russian women; it reminds me of Afghanistan with the soldiers' mothers about thirty years ago or even more. Could this destabilize the Putin regime, or are we taking wishes for realities? Géraldine, Lucas, Vincent? I personally think it's a bit early to know. In any case, it's new, and as I said, it strengthens the narrative. The propaganda behind it will obviously support all these little scenes of daily irritation you see. They are picked up by Ukrainian services on social networks, broadcast everywhere, amplified, multiplied. They will try to create a bit of chaos. Now, in Siberia, in remote areas, these irritations do not exist. So we need to see how long it lasts, how it is exploited, but in any case, it is clearly a turning point in what we have known since 2022, it seems to me. Lucas, we need to be extremely cautious because Vladimir Putin is an animal that, if wounded, can become even more dangerous. But it's true that we see and hear accounts of what is happening that are starting to change Russian public opinion a little. Vladimir Putin seems increasingly cut off from reality. Western intelligence services explain that he doesn't even have access to the same information as the Russians. That is, they produce special TV news for him because he has isolated himself so much that his entourage is forced to lie to him. So it's a kind of spiral of lies where the country's leader no longer even knows exactly what is happening. And indeed, we see in his statements when he says, "Oh yes, yes, there's a small fuel problem, but it will be quickly resolved," we realize that he is not grasping the scale of what happened. On the other hand, be careful not to shout victory too quickly. That is, wars are extremely difficult to end. The Russians have incredible capabilities and are capable of sending hundreds of thousands more men to the front to fight against the Ukrainians. These are extremely important and symbolic victories. But the reality is that recapturing the territories occupied by the Russians for the Ukrainian army will be extremely difficult. So maybe the Russian regime could collapse from within, but we're not there yet. Vincent, your feeling? Yes, yes, I think exactly the same as Lucas. We are going a bit too fast. We must be very cautious. Yes, yes, we need to add some nuance to all this. I think it could also suit Putin to let exasperation rise in Russia in order to possibly tighten the screws, particularly to mobilize for recruitment. We know he has big problems recruiting because with this war of attrition, he is losing enormous numbers of men – between 500 and 1,000 per day – and he is reaching a low point in troop numbers on the ground. We are talking about a new mobilization campaign in the fall. Absolutely. That's it. So it could give him arguments to mobilize much more broadly. But the new mobilization campaign – not to make comparisons with the STO in France during the war, but we also see that it can sometimes create tensions that fuel discontent. You, I feel you wanted to add a word anyway. Dominique. Yes. No, simply I think that in any case, it is Mr. Zelensky's strategy. He announced – remember the letter he sent to Putin saying, "Watch out, and watch out for yourself." Yes, that's true. So that means for your regime. He announced it. Then, 4 days ago, he said, "We are going for 40 days." An offensive of 40 days. That means he knows he has the stocks to strike for 40 days. Ah, for you, that means he has the stocks. That means that otherwise he wouldn't announce it; he's not crazy, he wouldn't say it. And he wouldn't say, "I'm going for 40 days." And here we are in the execution. So the execution of this big campaign has been going on for a week, no more. So let's see what it will be in 40 days. But in any case, his goal is destabilization. If you'll allow me to add just one word with a little tricolor flag, following up on what Lucas said about "only war teaches war," and the French army is learning war through Ukraine today. And to come back to why we don't do it, etc., I'll give you an example. The deep strike missile. It was defined in the Army, in particular, that we needed to have deep strike capabilities – the MLRS, which is American, reaches obsolescence in 2027, so it's over. What is it about? It's a long-range missile, 80 km, not so long, but it allows a missile to fire deep. Well, two French companies entered into competition and in a year and a half carried out two strikes with missiles that go much further than that. And those are the two companies MBDA and Thales, you know, the competition. And the Ministry of Defense chose one of the two – the Ministry of the Armies, sorry – chose one of the two, and that's it, we are in the application phase to be able to have a new vehicle and deep-strike missile in less than 2 years. Who would have thought we were capable of doing that? Well, we are capable of doing it because we have companies that are capable, that learn from what is happening in Ukraine, and that accelerate because they have been given a deadline – the threat is there by 2030. Let's not underestimate ourselves too much. We too, that's what we understand. Exactly.