Russia

Baroness Turner of Camden Excerpts

Thursday 16th October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Turner of Camden (Lab)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Falkner, for introducing the debate. It is a very important subject. I had at first feared that we would be heading for conflict with Russia—even a return to the Cold War—but there have recently been more favourable developments, with the prospect of discussions taking place between the two sides.

Ukraine is a much-divided country: the east does not want to be governed from the west by Kiev and Kiev is suspicious of Russian involvement. It has always been necessary to try to resolve these differences through negotiations. There have of course been many allegations about Russian involvement. But what about the West? What about the CIA? What about NATO, which has a number of states on the border with Russia?

The demonstrators who brought about the downfall of the previous President, who, incidentally, was elected, were not all nice, progressive democrats. Some were very dubious people, including members of the Svoboda party who were rather racist and probably nationalistic. However, these people were supported by the West—by the CIA and by statements from NATO leaders.

In my view, we must try to restore relations with the Russians. Culturally, they are close to us in all sorts of ways—in music, the arts, literature, scientific developments and, as we have been reminded by the noble Lord, Lord Owen, business. It is to our advantage to have these close links.

As for Crimea, Russia has links going back a very long way, to the days of Catherine the Great, and still has a naval base there. The people living there have had some sort of vote, the result of which was in favour of rejoining Russia. We have been told that it was not legal, which has been disputed by Russia. However, if, by any chance, the people there want to rejoin Russia, I do not see why they should be prevented from doing so if there are arrangements for the protection of minorities.

I am strongly in favour of restoring relations with Russia. I have been there on a number of occasions, not only a long time ago, during the Soviet era, but much more recently. I have great respect for the Russian people, who have suffered greatly from interventions. During the last war many millions were killed and there was the dreadful siege of St Petersburg. The transition from the Soviet era to the present capitalist one was a very difficult period for the Russian people. Before that, of course, there were the Napoleonic Wars, which gave us War and Peace. It is interesting to recall that, when he was a young man, Tolstoy served in the army, defending Crimea against interventions from Britain and France in 1854—a little remembered western intervention. There is some history here. Let us hope that the future is much better.

It is in the interests of both sides to make progress in the discussions. There has, of course, been a lot of criticism of the present President, Vladimir Putin. He appears to be popular with the Russian people at the moment, particularly following the annexation of Crimea. On the other hand, we have to come to terms with people whom we may not particularly like if we are to avoid a conflict. We need further discussion if we are to avoid the sort of problems that have arisen recently. I hope it will be possible to accept what is now on offer, which seems to be negotiations between the two sides that are currently in conflict in Ukraine. Putin seems to be willing to make some gestures in the direction of resolving the problems that exist. Of course there will be problems but they can be matters for discussion, which I hope can be reasonably arranged so that this can be brought to a close. We have far more bringing us together than separating us. I therefore hope that that is how we shall proceed to deal with the issues that have been raised in today’s debate.