Ukraine (International Relations and Defence Committee Report)

Baroness Coussins Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2025 Grand Committee

[Baroness Coussins (CB)]

My Lords, I also have the privilege of being a member of the International Relations and Defence Committee. I will confine my remarks in this debate to one of the points in chapter 3 of our report, “Nurturing partnerships”. This looks at the concept of defence in a more holistic and big-picture way than just the size of the Armed Forces or the supply chains and capability of weapons, crucial though these things self-evidently are.

Alliances, partnerships and reputation also underpin our defence posture and, in the case of Ukraine, have exposed an important weakness when we consider the situation globally and long-term. We need to think very carefully about the response of the countries which we generally call the global South to the support from the UK for Ukraine, partly so that a rounded view of the current situation can take place, but also so that the UK in formulating its future defence strategies and capabilities can be realistic about those alliances, partnerships and reputational risks on which our engagement in any future combat situation might depend.

As the report states:

“International engagement is integral to deterrence and escalation management”.


At the time of the report’s publication—I am certainly not going to go into the astonishing change in voting behaviour by the US at the UN recently—the UN’s 193 member states had voted on six emergency special session resolutions on Ukraine. Most countries supported the first of these, which condemned Russia’s invasion, with only one-quarter of states not in favour. All those that abstained or voted against were countries in Africa, Latin America, the Middle East and south-east Asia: the global South. This pattern held in subsequent votes and few countries in any of those regions have imposed any sanctions on Russia or given any material support to Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Russia has been able to divide and rule between the positions of the West on one hand and of the global South on the other, by talking up the Soviet Union’s historical support for decolonisation, attracting support particularly in Africa and Asia. Our report quotes a former Portuguese Minister, who said:

“Ukraine’s plight would receive a lot more sympathy in the Global South if it were presented as a war of national liberation … if you described Russia as the last European empire”.

While the UK has been reluctant to embrace this narrative, Russia has gone full speed ahead with diplomatic initiatives to court and secure support from the global South.

For example, it held a Russia-Africa summit and parliamentary conference in 2023 and described a new foreign policy approach in opposition to the so-called western neocolonialism. It also held the first ever Russia-Latin America conference in the same year. This has resulted in countries of the global South feeling aggrieved at what is perceived to be a distracting concern of the West with Russian aggression. They would prefer to see attention towards issues such as debt and climate change, rather than what is being viewed as western hypocrisy and double standards, particularly towards the suffering of people in regions of the world other than Ukraine.

Evidence we received from the Henry Jackson Society suggested that these undesirable trends could be shifted by a more assertive role by the UK in the Security Council and the G7, away from a subordinate position of reliance on the US, and stressed the importance of maintaining a physical presence in regions of potential conflict.

I suggest that this all adds up to a clear pointer that the Government’s recent decision to fund greater defence spending—vital though that must surely be—by raiding the international aid budget might be short-sighted and ultimately self-defeating. If the UK’s future defence capability, strategy, deterrence and engagement are to command the respect of global leadership rather than risk a global cold shoulder, we will need a more holistic definition of defence and the support, not the cynicism, of the global South. We should pay more attention to Latin America and avoid short-changing Africa. On the surface, I can see that that sounds literally miles away from our defence agenda, but the interconnectedness is now more important to understand than ever before. I look forward to the Minister’s comments on these points.