Ukraine

Lord Goodhart Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goodhart (LD)]

My Lords, I want to speak briefly on this occasion and to concentrate on Crimea. We need to study the past of Crimea as well as its recent features.

Crimea has been an important Russian district ever since the great Queen Catherine secured it in the latter half of the 18th century. In the 1860s, as we all know, a Russian army was fighting attacks by the British and French armies in Crimea. After that, Crimea remained an important part of Russia. Crimea gathered important places—think of Simferopol, Sevastopol, Balaklava and Yalta, all of them full of Russian people and often Russian buildings. Yalta was, and is, a very special city. For example, it was for several years the home of Chekhov, the greatest Russian author of his day, and was the summer home of the Russian tsars until Tsar Nicholas II and his wife and children were taken away and murdered by the Bolsheviks. In 1944, Stalin secured in Yalta a conference with Roosevelt and Churchill to plan the end of the war against the Germans. None of this was part of Ukraine. Crimea was not treated as part of Ukraine until 1960. At that time, Russia, Ukraine and Crimea were parts of the Soviet Union. It was, I believe, at that time assumed that the Soviet Union would continue to be permanently in charge of Russia and Ukraine.

It was not until some years later, in about 1992, that the Soviet Union ceased to exist. Crimea remained in Ukraine. I believe that this was a mistake and that Crimea should have been made either an independent state or a section of Russia. I do not want the people of Crimea to be forced into abiding by the decisions of the inhabitants of the rest of Ukraine because they are very different. That being so, I believe that we should not do anything to restore Crimea to membership of Ukraine. The Crimean people should not be forced back into Ukraine. Crimea and Ukraine are different and should be recognised as separate places. I agree that there should continue to be Ukraine areas, except in Crimea. The majority of Ukraine and the majority of the citizens of Crimea should be kept separate. If that happens, things will go better, as they should. What we have seen in the past few weeks is very serious and we have to be careful about how we handle it. We need to recognise that what is done now in Ukraine is not necessarily the same as what should be done in Crimea.