"A weapon that requires permission to use is a mock-up": Fire Point explains its decision to forgo a kill switch
Kyiv • UNN
Ukrainian defense company Fire Point deliberately chose not to include a kill switch in its weapons. The company's CEO, Iryna Terekh, explained why the ability to use a weapon should not depend on the manufacturer's permission or political decisions by third countries.
The Ukrainian defense company Fire Point is deliberately building weapons without a kill switch—a mechanism that allows the manufacturer to block or restrict their use. The company understands that it will not have control over the use of the weapons it sells, but considers this a fundamental condition for genuine defense independence, reports UNN.
Fire Point CEO and CTO Iryna Terekh spoke about the principled refusal to use a kill switch on the YouTube channel of the Unmanned Systems Forces during a discussion held on Independence Day.
YouTube of the Unmanned Systems Forces
The experience of the full-scale war forced Ukraine to essentially reconsider the very concept of military independence. The presence of weapons in an arsenal, Terekh emphasized, does not yet mean that a state truly controls its own defense if their use requires the consent of a third party.
From Ukraine’s experience, we have learned that security without independence is worth nothing. A weapon that you possess but for which you have to ask permission to strike somewhere with it is not a weapon. It is a mock-up of a weapon that you have in your arsenal
It is obvious that in the future, some Ukrainian-made weapons will be exported. After selling weapons to another state, Fire Point will have no hidden capability to block their use at a critical moment.
We understand that one day we will export weapons and will not have control over them. This is our conscious position. This is how I see the future of weapons, because these are certain security guarantees that must exist in hardware and technology, not in political blah-blah-blah
However, this principle also has another side—as Iryna Terekh explained, weapons without a kill switch must not end up in the hands of states to which they were not intended to be sold. Therefore, this issue requires separate regulation.
However, the country that purchased the weapons, spent funds on deploying them, and trained its military personnel to use them must have a guaranteed ability to employ them when a real threat arises.
To remind you
Earlier, Fire Point publicly announced its refusal to use a kill switch in the context of the pan-European Freyja anti-ballistic system. In addition, the system is being created as an open platform for technological cooperation so that it will not be critically dependent on a single manufacturer or supplier. Ukraine’s wartime experience has effectively transformed technological sovereignty from a political slogan into a technical task. In the model described by Fire Point, the state must control not only its arsenal, but also the right to use it, the ability to keep it operational, and the capacity to produce critical components without permission from outside.
And it is precisely the absence of a kill switch in such a system that becomes not a separate technical characteristic, but part of a much broader principle: weapons must remain weapons even when the political climate changes.