Debate: Ukraine - 15th May 2023

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Ukraine

Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill

Monday 15th May 2023

(1 year, 6 months ago)

Lords Chamber

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Statement

The following Statement was made in the House of Commons on Thursday 11 May.

“With permission, Mr Deputy Speaker, I will update the House on Russia’s attacks on civilians and critical national infrastructure in Ukraine.

We are now on day 442 of the conflict. During this period, Moscow has, according to the United Nations, provoked the largest displacement of people in Europe since World War II, including almost 8 million refugees and almost 6 million internally forced from their homes.

We must not lose sight of those staggering statistics. Worse still, Russia’s battlefield setbacks have led to it cynically targeting energy infrastructure, putting millions of people at risk of sickness and death in cold, unsanitary conditions. Take the besieged city of Bakhmut, where there are now fewer than 7,000 residents, 1/10th of the original population. For the last nine months they have been hiding in basements, without clean water, electricity or gas, and with minimal connection to the outside world.

From the scale of the Russians’ attacks, it is clear that they have not limited themselves to military targets. Their purpose is simply to terrorise the local population into submission. That is the only conclusion that can be drawn when we look at Russia’s ever-expanding charge sheet of international humanitarian law violations. As of 2 April, there have been 788 attacks on healthcare facilities: hospitals, clinics and medical centres. There have been instances of damage to educational facilities: schools, daycare centres and even nurseries.

Meanwhile, Russia has plundered crops and agricultural equipment on an industrial scale, destroying grain storage and handling facilities. According to estimates from the Kyiv School of Economics, Russia stole or destroyed 4.04 million tonnes of grain and oilseeds, valued at $1.9 billion, in Ukrainian territories during the 2022 season. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s continued intransigence is contributing to the current backlog of grain exports.

Besides that, Russia has bombed industrial facilities, including the Azot chemical plant, risking toxic industrial chemical release and environmental impact. It has attacked Ukraine’s largest refinery at Kremenchuk on at least three occasions. It has bombed airfields, ports, roads and rail networks, preventing refugees from fleeing the danger. It has taken out communications networks, affecting banks, the internet and cellphones, with residents in some areas now forced to barter for food. Kremlin strikes on substations, powerplants and powerlines have also impacted water treatment facilities, leaving cities such as Mariupol without water and reliant on delivery of bottled supplies.

At the same time, Russia has forcibly occupied and undermined the safe operation of the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the largest in Europe. As Rafael Grossi, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, has said:

‘Every single one of the IAEA’s crucial seven indispensable pillars for ensuring nuclear safety and security in an armed conflict has been compromised’.

He recently warned that the situation around the plant was ‘potentially dangerous’.

Sadly, at least 23,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed or wounded so far, although the actual figure is likely to be substantially higher. Thousands of citizens have been sent to sinister ‘filtration’ camps before being forcibly relocated to Russia. Some 6,000 children, ranging in ages from four months to 17 years, are now in ‘re-education camps’ across Russia.

Both United Nations and United States investigators have found that Russia has committed war crimes, with reported evidence of executions, torture and sexual violence in civilian areas. In early April President Zelensky said that more than 70,000 Russian war crimes had been recorded since Putin’s invasion. The names of Bucha and Izyum have become synonymous with mass murder. The world will not forget the bombing of the drama theatre in Mariupol, where 1,200 civilians sought shelter under a giant sign reading ‘Children’. No matter how much Russia tries to hide and bulldoze over the scene, we will not forget.

Even in the territories that Russia has illegally annexed, citizens find themselves subjected to the worst excesses of totalitarianism. A Russian passport is increasingly essential to access vital services—a nightmare for those with newborn babies. Civilian infrastructure, such as healthcare facilities, is being seized and repurposed to treat wounded servicemen. Kill lists of civic leaders have been drawn up, citizens executed in cold blood and concerted attempts made to erase Ukrainian culture, history and identity.

We should be clear: the targeting of civilians and infrastructure essential to the civilian population of Ukraine has not happened by accident in the fog of war. Much of it was planned Russian policy. Russia has form, and we have seen its handiwork in Syria. In March, President Putin himself was indicted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

However, we should also be clear that, as numerous credible reports indicate, while Russia’s morally bankrupt approach might have been made in the Kremlin, it is often carried out willingly, not just by rogue units, but by the ordinary rank and file across the Russian armed forces. An even clearer picture of Russia’s barbaric approach emerges when we look at some of the weapons it is using against innocent civilians. I am not referring here to the extensive strikes against Ukraine’s electric power network from cruise and surface-to-surface missiles, the use of short-range ballistic missiles such as the Iskander, which infamously hit the train station in Kramatorsk, killing 60 and wounding more than 110, or even the two 500 kilogram bombs dropped by Russian fighter aircraft on that Mariupol theatre.

The fact is that Russia has used cluster munitions with wholesale disregard for human life and civilians. They have been dropped near a hospital in Vuhledar. A 9M79-series Tochka ballistic missile delivering a 9N123 cluster munition warhead killed four civilians and injured another 10, including six healthcare workers. Russia has used Smerch cluster munition rockets in three neighbourhoods in Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, resulting in reports of nine civilian deaths and 37 injuries, according to the United Nations.

Russia also relies on massed fires. Indiscriminate artillery bombardments of built-up areas account for the vast majority of civilian casualties—injured or killed. Moscow also makes extensive use of conventional anti-personnel mines and improvised booby-traps to indiscriminately harm civilians. Dead bodies, the homes and vehicles of Ukrainian civilians and even children’s toys have been rigged up as lethal devices. Russia has laid mines remotely and mechanically, covering significant areas of farmland, with scant evidence that it has either marked minefields or warned civilians about their presence. Those minefields will leave a legacy long after the conflict ends.

Russia has used hundreds of Iranian-made Shahed drones to attack targets in Ukraine. Loitering munitions sent on numerous suicide missions have repeatedly taken their toll on civilians. Last week, those weapons struck a university campus in Odessa and civilians were once more in the crosshairs in Kyiv.

From the start I have been clear that our support for Ukraine is responsible, calibrated, co-ordinated and agile. Aligned and united with the international community, we are helping the Ukrainians to defend their homeland. Most importantly, our support is responsive to Russia’s own actions. None of this would have been necessary had Russia not invaded, but now it is about pushing back Russian forces and deterring them from committing yet more crimes, by holding the Russian military establishment to account for its actions.

In December, I wrote to Russian Defence Minister Shoigu, setting out the UK Government’s objection to the deliberate targeting of civilian infrastructure, and stating that further attacks—contrary to international humanitarian law; for example, the principle of distinction codified in Articles 48, 51 and 52 of additional protocol 1 to the Geneva conventions—would force me to consider donating more capable weapons to Ukraine so that the Ukrainians may better defend themselves within their territory.

Unfortunately, Russia has continued down that dark path. This year Russia’s leadership has continued to systematically target civilians and civilian infrastructure with bombs, missiles and drones. More medical facilities were targeted in January than in the previous six months combined. Russia has bombed power facilities in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Ivano-Frankivsk, Lviv, Zaporizhzhia and Odessa oblasts. Incidents of civilian casualties have increased, especially in areas close to the front line such as Kherson and Bakhmut.

In January a block of flats in Dnipro was wiped out by a 5.5 tonne Russian ‘Kitchen’ missile that probably caused 124 casualties, including 45 fatalities. In March, a five-storey apartment block in Zaporizhzia was attacked with an S-300 missile that completely destroyed the building. Between 27 April and 2 May, Russian forces conducted strikes against Ukraine using Kh-101 and Kh-555 long-range air-launched cruise missiles.

Despite the Kremlin’s claims that it is targeting Ukraine’s ‘military-industrial facilities’, one of the buildings struck was a nine-storey apartment building. The salvo left 23 dead and dozens more injured. Last week, Russian shelling struck residential buildings and on Monday Russia bombed a Red Cross warehouse full of humanitarian aid.

Drone footage from Bakhmut appears to show white phosphorus raining down on a city ablaze. The use of such incendiary weapons, which burn at 800 degrees centigrade, within concentrations of civilians is a contravention of protocol 3 of the Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

As I have said many times, we simply will not stand by while Russia kills civilians. We have seen what Ukrainians can do when they have the right capabilities. In recent days, 30 Shahed drones have been shot down. The Ukrainian air force says that 23 out of 25 cruise missiles fired from sea and land have been downed. We have also had confirmation from Lieutenant General Oleschuk, the Ukrainian air force commander, that even Russia’s much-vaunted ‘Killjoy’ air-launched hypersonic missile has been brought down. That is why the Prime Minister and I have now taken the decision to provide longer-range capabilities.

In December, I informed the House that I was developing options to respond to Russia’s continued aggression in a calibrated and determined manner. Today I can confirm that the UK is donating Storm Shadow missiles to Ukraine. Storm Shadow is a long-range, conventional-only precision strike capability. It complements the long-range systems that have already been gifted, including the HIMARS and Harpoon missiles, as well as Ukraine’s own Neptune cruise missile and longer-range missiles gifted elsewhere. The donation of those weapon systems gives Ukraine the best chance to defend itself against Russia’s continued brutality, especially the deliberate targeting of Ukrainian civilian infrastructure against international law. Ukraine has a right to be able to defend itself against that.

The use of Storm Shadow will allow Ukraine to push back Russian forces based within Ukrainian sovereign territory. I am sure that the House will understand that I will not go into further detail on the capabilities, but although those weapons will give Ukraine new capability, Members should recognise that those systems are not even in the same league as the Russian AS-24 ‘Killjoy’ hypersonic missile, Iranian Shahed one-way attack drones, or even the Kalibr cruise missile, which has a range of more than 2,000 kilometres—roughly seven times that of a Storm Shadow missile. Russia must recognise that its actions alone have led to such systems being provided to Ukraine. It is my judgment as Defence Secretary that this is a calibrated and proportionate response to Russia’s escalations.

When travelling through Ukraine, as I have done several times since the invasion, one sees the smashed buildings and piles of rubble, where there were once thriving businesses and homes full of life. They reveal the truth of Russia’s invasion: needless destruction and gratuitous violence, and—despite warnings—Russia’s continued violations of international law and deliberate targeting and killing of civilians. They are the visible and tragic symbols of the Kremlin’s desperation.

Try as it might, the Kremlin cannot hide the fact that its invasion is already failing. The Russians can only occupy the rubble left by their destruction. All this week’s Victory Day parade did was showcase that historic failure. It demonstrated Putin’s efforts to twist the Soviet Union’s sacrifice against the Nazis, and was an insult to the Russians’ own immortal regiment. It was the façade of power, a distraction from the faltering invasion, an appeal to unity while even Russia’s own leadership loses confidence—the hypocrisy of claiming victimhood while waging a war of its own choosing.

The reality is that this is a war of President Putin’s own choosing at the expense of Ukraine’s sovereignty and civilian lives. The UK stands for the values of freedom, the rule of law, human rights and the protection of civilians. We will stand side by side with the Ukrainians. We will continue to support them in defence of their sovereign country. I commend this Statement to the House”.

19:36