Ukraine

Baroness Helic Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Helic (Con)]

My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Lord. I too welcome this debate and associate myself with the wise words of noble Lords, particularly those of the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, and the noble Lord, Lord Spellar.

Europe is divided between countries that understand Russia—those that have experienced Soviet occupation and domination—and countries that have been fortunate enough not to have experienced Soviets on their soil. We are lucky that our allies today are countries like Poland and the Baltic states, whose leaders have experienced Soviet domination in living memory. They have been sounding the alarm about Russian intentions for years, and were often wrongly accused of being alarmist, or of even poisoning good relations with Moscow.

It is encouraging that the new candidate for EU High Representative is the former Prime Minister of Estonia, Kaja Kallas, who has been a consistently clear voice on what Putin’s Russia stands for and what must be done to help Ukraine as it fights to defend its own territory and peace in Europe. In her words:

“Russia’s imperialistic dream never died.”


Post-2022, it is difficult to argue against this.

Russia’s war on Ukraine presents a challenge to Western interests and to countries collectively and individually. How we respond to its illegal war of aggression speaks of our values and our strength. To fight back, we need strong defence, policies that shore up collective security in Europe where it is threatened by Russia, the support of the British people, and moral clarity. We must be able to counter Russia in Ukraine as well as beyond Ukraine, not only militarily but by pushing against its false narrative of self-defence, its spread of disinformation and its so-called successful battle for the hearts and minds of global public opinion, in which it is cynically portraying itself as a country in pursuit of peace while the West supposedly fuels war.

In this context, I will focus on three issues. First, we must be honest with the British people that Britain is at war and that investment in defence and the industries that support it, as well as in the FCDO, is a grave need, not a matter of luxury or choice. We must be clear: freedom, security and peace have a cost attached to them. Is the Minister confident that the defence budget will be set at 2.5% not in some distant future, but on 30 October?

Secondly, Russia crossed many red lines well before February 2022—in Moldova, Georgia and Crimea, and in Donbass in 2014. For decades it did so almost unchallenged. As our experience in Ukraine shows today, for us, this has been a costly mistake, and we seem to have learned little from it. In the Balkans, the most unstable part of Europe, the West is collectively acting as if none of these lessons have been learned. Russian infiltration and meddling have been normalised. Russia funds, trains and supports secessionists in Bosnia, Kosovo and North Macedonia, and fuels discord and disinformation, using the Russian Orthodox Church, with no consequences.

Serbia, Russia’s main proxy in the region, has been rapidly rearming, buying drones from Iran and cyber from China, and as of last week signing a co-operation agreement between its intelligence service and the FSB. Russian and Belarusian dissidents languish in Serbian prisons waiting for their extradition to Russia or Belarus.

The West’s response has been not one of appeasement but of actually helping the rearming effort. A couple of months ago, France sold 12 new Rafale fighter jets. Calls for the creation of a “Serbian world” to expand Serbia’s territory seem to have become normalised, just as the notion of a “Russian world” was.

Speaking about the Balkans two weeks ago, President Zelensky said:

“If Russia had managed to invade our country and threaten all of Eastern Europe, there is no doubt that the next region that Moscow would use to destabilize Europe would be the Baltics or the Balkans”.


If this does not ring alarm bells and inspire us to take more robust action, it shows that we have learned nothing from the tragedy in Ukraine. With this in mind, what plans are there for a full review of the West’s chaotic and failing strategy in the western Balkans, particularly following our defence agreement with Germany and closer co-operation with the European Union?

Finally, to overcome the Russian challenge, we need more than military might and determination, however admirable that is. We must have moral clarity and strength on our side, not only in Ukraine but beyond. Sadly, this is not the case. The head of the Norwegian Refugee Council, Jan Egeland, said:

“Since we all agree that Russian occupation of Ukraine is very bad, how come Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza seems to be tolerable?”


This loses us support among the countries that should be on Ukraine’s side. Just look at yesterday’s BRICS meeting and the noble Baroness’s comments about India: Putin the aggressor was embraced, not isolated. This alienates us not only from future allies and friends but from our own people here in Britain. We need the British people to support what we are trying to do in Ukraine, and they have to believe we are on the right side elsewhere as well.

Ukraine is fighting for its own survival. It is also, by extension, fighting for peace and security in Europe and beyond. If borders can be changed in Ukraine, a message will go out that they can change elsewhere too. We must do everything in our power so that this does not happen, whether in Europe or anywhere else in the world.