Ukraine and Wider Operational Update

Lord Cromwell Excerpts

Monday 12th January 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

That is an important question. I join the noble Lord in congratulating the Ukrainian armed forces, and acknowledge the stoicism and bravery of the Ukrainian people for resisting in the way that they have.

Whatever the debate about defence investment and how much we should be spending, we should remember what we actually are doing. Notwithstanding the difficulties and challenges that Ukraine faces in re-equipping and so on, we should remind ourselves that Russia was not expecting to be in the position that it is now. When it attacked, it was expecting to take Kyiv within a few days, put a puppet Government in place and have a vassal state. That was the intention. Has Russia been successful in doing that? Not at all. Instead of saying that this is where we are now, sometimes you need to go back and look at what the original objective was. I say to this House, this Parliament and this country that Russia has totally failed in its original objective. Ultimately, it has failed because of the bravery of the Ukrainian people and the support that most countries have given to them.

What else did Russia expect? It expected NATO to be weakened and implode. What has happened? Notwithstanding the discussions we have had about the United States, NATO has been strengthened. Who would have said at the beginning of the conflict that Finland and Sweden would join NATO? They have, and that has strengthened NATO. As well as looking at the challenges and difficulties that we face, we ought to remind ourselves sometimes about what has been done and is working well. Russia has failed in its original objectives, and we should remind people of that.

[Lord Cromwell (CB)]

I want to take the Minister back to the issue of conversation. He and I have discussed in the past that, these days, social media is a weapon of war. I quoted to him a senior military figure who said to me, “We should spend as much on social media as we do on hard kit”. I suspect that comes pretty hard to those with a military background, but what does he think of that suggestion?

[Lord Coaker (Lab)]

It is important to recognise that warfare is changing, and that part of the battle now is understanding what is fake news and what is happening in reality. In every area of life, what appears online is an important part of any battle. The noble Lord will know that, both in Ukraine and in other parts of the world, the battlespace is online. Part of the Government’s response to that is to open up new cyber recruitment routes into the Armed Forces. To develop that, we have a new cyber offensive command as well as our defensive operations. That is how warfare is changing. I am not sure that everyone who will come in through the cyber route would naturally have got in via the soldier route before, but they are the soldiers of the future as well as those whom we would regard as soldiers in the more traditional sense. So, that is a good point. The war of the future is going to have many of the features of the past but also features along the lines that the noble Lord has just outlined.