Ukraine

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, as we look to the future of what is happening in Ukraine, it is important to bear in mind, as the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, has just done, the extent of the Ukrainian achievement so far. We talk about victory and defeat but, when one thinks of what Putin was setting out to do and what he has achieved, there is no doubt that, so far, Ukraine has achieved a considerable victory. It has withstood the Russian invasion; Russia has acquired only some 20% of the territory; it has banished the Black Sea fleet from the Black Sea; and it has made the Russian economy largely dependent on China, a very humiliating situation for Mr Putin. It has done extremely well, and we must pay tribute to that.

However, to put it mildly, the outlook is not so good. Like World War I after the first battle of the Marne, the war has settled down into a war of attrition but, unlike the two sides on the Western Front, Russia and Ukraine are far from equally matched. They are much more like the rivals in another great war of attrition, the American Civil War, when the resources of the north were so much greater than those of the south.

If war, short of some devastating Napoleonic coup, is largely a matter of resources, the outlook for Ukraine is becoming increasingly difficult and it is important to be realistic about that, as indeed are many Ukrainians. A Gallup poll in July showed 69% in favour of a negotiated peace as soon as possible, versus 24% for continuing to fight until victory. The Economist recently reported that the independent Ukrainian polling organisation the Rating Group found that 59% of Ukranians would accept a loss of territory if that brought about peace.

More eloquent than these figures is the number of Ukrainians who have fled their country. In September this year—not so long ago—the UNHCR estimated that to be 5.7 million. We have heard about the problems facing Russia and people leaving Russia, but that is a very substantial drain of the Ukrainian population. Many of those people, I realise, went in the early months, but the drain has continued, and it has continued of men of military age as well as other people. Not many have returned. This exodus and its implications must be borne in mind as we admire the guts, resourcefulness and stamina of the Ukrainian front-line troops and the heroism of the civilians who put up with bombing and bombardment of every sort.

Against that background, it is no wonder that Russia believes that it is in its interest to squeeze Ukraine like a python squeezes its prey. Russia must believe, against the background I have just outlined, that it may yet force a military collapse. Failing that, it must believe that the longer it goes on, the more Ukraine will be left in a devastated situation when peace eventually comes. That will, of course be bad for Ukraine, but it will be bad for us and our European allies too, because it is we who will have to support the recovery of Ukraine and the revival of its civic society, economy and armed forces.

So we must continue to support Ukraine militarily and financially, as other speakers have said, and through sanctions on Russia, with the twin aims of bringing Russia to the negotiating table if possible, and certainly of preventing a Ukrainian collapse. But we must also align ourselves with those elements in the Ukrainian Government and society that want to seek ways to end the war by negotiation on terms that Russia can accept, if that is possible. That way lies the best hope of rebuilding Ukraine’s economy and society after the guns have fallen silent.

We must continue our support of Ukraine at war, but we must bear in mind that, in the long run, what we want is a prosperous, free and democratic Ukraine, and we want it to emerge from the war with the ability to create a society of that kind.

Strategic Defence Review 2025

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Friday 18th July 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Robertson, on his review, and welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Hennessy, whose writings over the years have done so much to influence my own thinking on this subject and others.

Given the time available, it is possible to deal with only one or two subjects in this review, and I will deal with just two. The first is to take up the Prime Minister’s words in his introduction, when he says:

“A step-change in the threats we face demands a step-change in”


Britain’s

“defence to meet them”.

That is a theme many other noble Lords have spoken on, but it is actually only half the story. I am not even sure that it is the most important half of the story, because there has also been a step-change in the position of our great ally the United States, on whom we, like other European countries, have depended for our ultimate defence ever since the war.

President Trump has said many things about the United States and NATO, and he said many things about the United States and European defence, but one thing is absolutely clear: he does not see the world in the same way we do, and it is not now possible to rely on the US commitment to our defence under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, as we have done in the past. That means that, regardless of the threats we face, to which the Prime Minister refers, and regardless of whether Russia is a major, potential or actual threat, we can no longer assume that we will always be fighting alongside the Americans. That in itself requires a massive military expenditure, given the extent to which our Armed Forces would at present be incapable of mounting significant military operations without American support.

Other Europeans are in the same boat and recognise that fact, and we are working closely with them. I congratulate the Government on the way in which they have repaired relationships with Germany, France and our other European allies. To the extent that we and our European allies spend and prepare more and make ourselves more self-sufficient, we will in fact be encouraging the Americans to play a larger part rather than discouraging them. Whatever the truth of the matter, it is essential that we do everything we can to keep the Americans on board and closely involved.

My second point is of a very different order. Whether there will be another crisis that might lead to war, let alone another war, we cannot know, but we do know that our critical national infrastructure of pipelines, fibre-optic cables, wind turbines and IT networks is under constant threat. We also know from the review itself that what it terms the cyber and electromagnetic domain is

“contested by adversaries every day: the United Kingdom is in constant confrontation with adversaries in cyberspace, defending national infrastructure”.

Many other noble Lords have referred to that.

In this as in other areas, we will and do of course work closely with our NATO allies to the east and south of us; but what of neutral Ireland to the west of us, through whose territorial waters and territory the vast bulk of transatlantic cables pass? As noble Lords know, Ireland spends little on defence, has very small Armed Forces and has no submarines. Therefore, my question to the Government is: will our western approaches be as sufficiently protected as those to the east and south of us? If not, can that be fixed? I would be interested to know the Government’s views on this point.

Ukraine

Lord Tugendhat Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Tugendhat (Con)]

My Lords, I begin by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, to this House and congratulating him on his maiden speech. I had the pleasure of getting to know him some years ago, when we were both on a delegation to Washington, and look forward to hearing more from him in the months and years ahead.

I turn to the war in Ukraine. It is impossible at present to say that either side, Russia or Ukraine, has been the victor. Russia has clearly gained far more territory but that is a far cry from its original aim of taking over the whole country in a matter of weeks. By comparing what it set out to do with what it actually has done, it is fair to say that Ukraine has had the better of the battle. Russia’s army has been shown up as incompetent and its navy has lost control of the Black Sea. Russia has become the junior partner in its alliance with China and, as the presence of North Korean troops demonstrates, it is having to turn to countries which it would once have regarded as satellites to help it keep its army in the field. All in all, Ukraine has done remarkably well.

We are now at a tipping point. Both sides face increasing difficulty maintaining the supply of troops they need. We have seen that in the case of Russia, but there are also newspaper reports about the problems the Ukrainians are having getting people to join the army. It is rather like the press gangs that operated at the time of Nelson’s navy, going round trying to pick up people in the streets and make them join the navy.

Ukraine suffers from the additional disadvantage that its infrastructure is being steadily degraded to the detriment of its military capability, its economic power and, above all, its social cohesion. The question for Ukraine, which comes through very clearly in newspaper reports from that country and from what one sees on the television, is no longer how much territory it can regain but how much it can hold on to. In these circumstances, it is for the Ukrainians to decide what they should try to do. It is not for us to tell them when they should make peace or the terms on which they should do so; it is for the Ukrainians to make those decisions for themselves.

There are, however, three things that Ukraine’s allies, including ourselves, should do. One is to keep up the flow of arms while they continue to fight, and to consider what other arms might be necessary in order to secure the battlefield advantage. Secondly, it is at the same time very important indeed that we should make clear the limits of what we are prepared to do, so that the Ukrainians’ decisions are not based on any false assumptions about the help they might receive. That might well be difficult to do. Thirdly, we must pledge generous help once the fighting stops, in order to rebuild their economy and defence capability. They must know that we, their western allies, will stand behind them in peace and in war and seek to safeguard their security.

In my view, however, this does not mean joining NATO. We think of NATO as a defensive alliance, but we must understand that the Russian people—I emphasise, the Russian people—regard it as a hostile military pact aimed at them. They have been confirmed in that view by the alliance’s expansion eastwards ever since the unification of Germany. One does not have to entirely accept the argument that the Russians were misled on this point at the time of unification and promised that NATO would not expand; but one has to understand that, to the Russians, something that ended at the German border has now been expanded to their border and appears, to them, to be hostile. That provides Putin constantly with the arguments he needs to justify his aggression to the Russian people and to persuade them to support his war, and so it would for his successors. In any case, talk of joining NATO is counterproductive, since clearly, a number of NATO members would veto any suggestion of Ukrainian membership. Therefore, talk of NATO makes it harder to reach a settlement in Ukraine and is disruptive to the alliance.