UKRAINE’S EXISTENTIAL STRUGGLE with Vladimir Putin relies in part on what is being built inside a factory off a drab industrial estate in a corner of East Belfast. Since Russia invaded in February, thousands of NLAW an-ti-tank missiles have been sent to Ukraine, where they have been used to lethal effect in destroying Russian armour.
The Ukrainians have also deployed Starstreak surface-to-air missiles to reduce the threat from Russian aircraft that have been bombing both military and civilian targets. Both weapon systems are constructed by the French arms manufacturer, Thales, at its base in eastern Belfast which Boris Johnson visited back in June.
He came to thank the firm for building the anti-tank rockets that proved decisive repelling Russian armoured columns menacing Kyiv and Kharkiv in the first few weeks of Putin’s “special military operation”. About 135 miles south there are other anti-tank weapons lying idle in what used to the British Army’s main
