Ukraine

Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I declare the financial support that I received for a visit this month to Ukraine with the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Explosive Weapons and their Impact, as recorded in the register, and as I spoke about in Committee on 16 October. I feel I should declare that, this year, I am a student on the Royal College of Defence Studies’ Global Strategy Programme, with parliamentarians from other major parties.

The work that I saw in the context of the APPG’s visit is my starting point today. Ukraine is now, as a result of the long-term Russian aggression, at the leading edge of experience and practice in clearing mines and other explosive weapons, and the hideous booby trap weapons that we saw at a visit to the Lviv State University of Life Safety. Sadly, Ukraine now has world-leading experience in treating their victims, particularly those needing prostheses, both civilian and military. It is also having to deal with the awful threats from antimicrobial resistance, particularly in battlefield wounds. I heard how front-line medics there are adapting to the issue in ways from which our medics can certainly learn.

Many noble Lords have spoken about supporting Ukraine, and I and the Green Party very much back that approach. However, I want to stress how much the Ukrainians can teach us and share with us. Last night, I joined Sofiia Bodun from the Green Party of Ukraine, speaking from Kyiv, and Viktoriya Ball from the Rozviy climate initiative at an online event run by the Green Ukraine solidarity campaign. Among the major topics of our discussion was how Ukraine is already starting work on delivering a green transition while rebuilding from Russian attacks. Under extraordinarily difficult conditions, Ukrainians are seeing the need to build back better rather than just replacing old, outdated technology approaches. We can learn from that.

The destruction of the Kakhovka dam drew international attention to the environmental impacts of Russia’s invasion. It has widely been referred to as ecocide, and it has spurred even further a drive to highlight such actions and ensure that they are punished. While I was in Ukraine, I met a fellow member of the Ecocide Alliance, the MP Yuliia Ovchynnykova. They are working really hard in this area.

Ukrainians have been at the forefront of facing up to the hybrid war being waged by Russia—that is action being taken by Moscow, as other noble Lords have said, not just against the Ukrainians but around the world, including in the UK. I will briefly focus on a particular part of that, the propaganda operations, or what has been called political warfare: the use of social media bots, the fuelling of internal conflicts and rifts, and black propaganda. We saw this played out very clearly at Donetsk and Luhansk, as exposed in 2019, in what have become known as the Surkov leaks. Such tactics are not as new as some have claimed; I note the CIA’s attempts to smuggle tonnes of printing and books behind the Iron Curtain from the 1950s onwards. Understanding that is important, while recognising that political warfare is now at a new scale and reach. As the Ukrainians have found in seeking to support and strengthen their democracy under the most difficult conditions, physical and technical defences against such efforts can go only so far.

Turning to our situation for a second, dealing with the weaknesses in our own society is something that we have to confront, as the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said at the start. When we hear talk about the Russian political war, disinformation and other dark arts, we need to acknowledge that we in the UK are made vulnerable by poverty and inequality, corruption and the failure to stand up to the rhetoric of those who would fuel division and hatred. The comments of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Houghton, should be considered in the context of that, particularly when we are thinking about welfare spending.

The forces that have driven poverty and inequality—that is, neoliberal ideologies and policies—have to be acknowledged. One of the questions raised at the Green event last night was how, after the war, we stop the IMF and other international financial institutions doing disastrous damage to Ukraine with policies of austerity, as neoliberal ideology in post-USSR Russia drove the disastrous rise of the oligarchs and President Putin. Part of my answer was to say that we have to be part of building a different world. To support the Ukrainians, our international positions should be uncompromisingly in support of the right to self-determination, human rights and the rule of law. It is important that we support those everywhere, without favour.

In that context, I have to note what has emerged this week about British arms being used in the execution of war crimes by the RSF in Sudan—weapons apparently supplied via the UAE. We have to stand for principles. That is in our own interests and those of the Ukrainians.