Ukraine

Lord Roberts of Belgravia Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Roberts of Belgravia (Con)]

My Lords, as the Minister’s inspiring speech emphasised, and the excellent maiden speech by the noble Lord, Lord Barrow, reiterated, all the indications are that Russia is preparing for a long war. The Kremlin continues to invest in the militarisation and mobilisation of Russian society and its defence industrial base. Indeed, it is now mobilising reservists on a rolling basis to fight in Ukraine.

The Institute for the Study of War assesses that Russia has entered its “Phase Zero” stage, investing in the “informational and psychological condition-setting” to prepare for a possible war even beyond Ukrainian borders. The West has made progress in recognising the Russian threat and has started gradually to increase its defence industrial capability to support Ukraine and our own defence, but we remain in a reactive posture. We have yet to mobilise our support of Ukraine fully, and yet to counter Russia’s growing malign activities in Europe meaningfully. As a result, Putin sees little reason to stop. The latest balloon attacks on Lithuanian airports from Belarus are a case in point. As Edward Lucas pointed out in the Times yesterday:

“This is brazen psychological warfare against NATO”.


Yet the West has all the necessary capacity to counter the Russian threat and take us off this trajectory towards a wider war. Russia is not weak, but it is weak relative to its present goals. Three years into the war, Putin has failed to achieve any of the stated aims of his so-called “special military operation” and, as we heard from the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, there have been over one million Russian casualties.

The battle for Pokrovsk has now been going on for one year, three months, one week and five days. What has helped Putin mask Russia’s many vulnerabilities is western incrementalism: gradual, incohesive pressure on Russia that has granted him military sanctuaries and space to reconstitute. Yet, as Nataliya Bugayova of the Institute for the Study of War has pointed out:

“The combined gross domestic product (GDP) of NATO countries, non-NATO European Union states, and”


the US’s

“Asian allies is over $63 trillion. The Russian GDP is on the close order of $1.9 trillion. … China is enabling Russia, but it is not mobilized on behalf of Russia … If we lean in and surge, Russia loses”.

To prevent the West achieving this kind of unity and momentum, the Kremlin continues to wage its cognitive war effort aimed at persuading us not to take more vigorous action—in particular, by giving or selling long-range missiles—which would deny Putin his military sanctuary spaces deep inside Russia. Russia’s way of doing this ranges from a continued nuclear blackmail and mixed diplomatic signals to blaming the West and Ukraine for Russia’s own failure meaningfully to engage in negotiations.

All too often, Russia’s useful idiots in the West amplify its disinformation campaigns. To break this cycle, we need to put Putin on the defensive. Ways of doing this have been clear all along—primarily, helping Ukraine to realise its full defence industrial base potential.

Ukraine went from a single-digit capacity before the invasion to a capacity of $30 billion today. Ukraine’s homegrown weapons systems have been a consistent source of her advantage. Hopefully, in January, Flamingo will be deployed: a deceptively named 1,800-mile range, 560 mph, jet-powered cruise missile with a 1,150 kg warhead.

We need to stop imagining that we can ever achieve a lasting peace in Europe without helping Ukraine inflict decisive battlefield defeat on Russia. Above all, we must get into a proactive—and out of our reactive—posture and do everything possible to help Ukraine degrade Russia’s capacity to continue the war. We are part of the coalition of the willing, but all too many other western countries are part of the coalition of the waiting.