Ukraine

Lord McDonald of Salford Excerpts

Friday 26th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord McDonald of Salford (CB)]

My Lords, two years ago, Putin’s Russia was massing 100,000 troops on the borders of Ukraine and the foreign ministries of the West were debating just how firmly they could rule out imminent Ukrainian membership of NATO and the European Union without definitively ruling it out for the long term. As the noble Baroness, Lady Suttie, said, a lot has changed in the last two years. As NATO’s Secretary-General said, Russia has gone from having the second-best army in the world to having the second-best army in Ukraine. Under President Zelensky, Ukraine has fought magnificently. On the other side, President Putin might warn darkly that Europe needs to take care, but the fact is, his troops are completely deployed in Ukraine; he has no capacity to take on anything else.

Beyond that, it is not clear what has definitively happened in the last couple of years. We can say that Russia will not win this war and will never have a Ukraine that is a compliant vassal state. Russia is going to have an awkward neighbour for the foreseeable future—but, beyond that, everything is still in play.

The detail of what is going on is also quite difficult to fathom. It is true that Ukraine has recovered more than half of the territory that Russia took at the beginning of the war, but most of those gains were at the end of 2022 and the beginning of 2023. It is certainly the case that Ukraine has not achieved the breakthrough that it hoped with the autumn offensive last year. So, although we congratulate Ukraine, clearly, things on the battlefield are in flux. On the other hand, it is not going very well for Russia, either. Before Christmas, Putin’s spokespeople in the media there were almost cracking the champagne at the idea of a quick victory early in 2024. This clearly is not happening. So here we meet at the end of January and one thing seems clear: this will last a long time.

Second, it is also clear that the help given by the UK and the West is crucial to the Ukrainian effort. Although the Ukrainians are fighting bravely, they are fighting with materiel provided by the West. They need that to continue the fight. Here, I am afraid I am going to disagree with the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. Looking at the contribution of the West, we see that the American contribution has not only been crucial but it is now in grave doubt. As several noble Lords have said, the UK has provided about £7 billion in military assistance. The Germans have provided more than double that. But the United States has provided at least 50% of the military capability that the Ukrainians have been using.

Donald Trump will change American policy. No matter that groups of American politicians disagree with their President, the US constitution makes the President of the United States the key player in foreign and defence policy. So, if Donald Trump becomes President of the United States, we face the prospect of the disappearance of the majority of the military assistance that Ukraine needs to continue and to win this fight. The question for us and the rest of the West is: are we prepared to make up the huge difference? This is tens of billions of pounds and it is necessary for the fight to continue.

It is even worse than that. The prospect of the Trump presidency casts a forward shadow. We are, of course, in the middle of the campaign and Ukraine is a convenient campaign issue for Mr Trump. The latest package that the Administration wants to vote through is in baulk; it is held up because Mr Trump does not want it to pass.

I fear that, with Mr Trump, Ukraine is personal. Noble Lords may remember that Ukraine was the cause of the first impeachment of Donald Trump. He tried to persuade Zelensky to start an investigation into his political rival to show that Ukraine had been interfering in the 2016 campaign, rather than Russia. This goes deep with Trump. We need to take very seriously indeed the possibility that US aid will disappear.

While I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Camoys—welcome, sir—and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, that we need to look again at UK defence spending, the more urgent task is to look at how much we are prepared to give Ukraine, if we are to fulfil the promise made by the Minister in his opening remarks of standing with Ukraine until the end.