Ukraine

Alicia Kearns Excerpts

Wednesday 28th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I am very grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for the cross-party support that he has given to what I have said. He is quite right to ask piercing questions, but the fact remains that the House is united on this issue, meaning that Britain speaks with one voice and with great effectiveness.

Once again, the right hon. Gentleman chides me for not being the Foreign Secretary. I am not the shadow Cabinet Minister for development—his hon. Friend the Member for Wigan (Lisa Nandy) occupies that position. He sees the Foreign Secretary often; I think he is about to see him again, and the Foreign Secretary is an ever-present presence at both ends of the House. Of course, he will be available to Members of this House for questioning in the way that has been discussed.

The right hon. Gentleman expressed very strong support for the further military provisions we have supplied and for the further sanctions. He talked about the wake-up call for Europe, and I very much agree with him. He asked about our working with the European Union and other European countries. He, like me, will have been delighted to see the €50 billion that the EU has allocated over the next four years for non-military activity, and there will be further announcements, we believe, in respect of military support. He will also have seen that, along with the £2.5 billion of military support announced by our Prime Minister, President Macron has announced a similar figure and Germany has very significantly increased the amount of military support it is providing for Ukraine. Clearly, there is great co-ordination and a rising recognition across Europe and throughout NATO that this is a struggle in which all of us are involved.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me about the effectiveness of sanctions. Some 2,000 people or entities have been sanctioned, including 90% of the Russian banking sector. In stepping up sanctions, which are developing all the time, we will be introducing an ability to sanction ships. On the effectiveness of sanctions, Russia would have had an additional $400 billion without the sanctions that have been imposed; money to prosecute the war that it does not now have. Last week, a Turkish company, three Chinese entities and two Belarus entities were sanctioned. Although, as I am sure he would agree, we do not discuss the development of sanctions across the House, I can assure him that this is proving to be very effective and is denying the Russian war machine vital supplies.

[Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)]

I welcome the deputy Foreign Secretary’s focus on the progress that Ukraine has made against overwhelming odds in the face of one of the biggest militaries in the world. I have just returned from Ukraine with the hon. Member for Glasgow South (Stewart Malcolm McDonald), and while there, it was my honour to meet some of the soldiers who were gravely injured last summer defending Avdiivka. They shared stories about how those in their units who are still on the frontline and have just had to withdraw were left bleeding out for six to eight hours, sometimes more, because there is not enough ammunition to medevac those who have been hurt. What happened in Avdiivka should shame the international community, not Ukraine, because what it is doing is incredible. Globally, people seem to forget that this is not a Disney movie: the good guys do not just win; it is down to us to make sure that they have the tools to fight. Over the weekend, I put proposals to the Defence Secretary on where I believe we can obtain more ammunition.

Bitterly, it is 80 years since the UK last went to the US to petition it to help defend security in Europe. I urge the deputy Foreign Secretary to help me advise how the UK is battling, as we need to do, some of the pernicious narratives that are arising. First, in the US, people are forgetting the threat of Putin. We must remind them that the threat of Putin is what they are ultimately fighting against. Secondly, in Europe, we see a pernicious narrative about how the Baltics and Nordics will defend themselves in two or three years’ time when Russia rebuilds itself. That cannot be the focus. We have to end Putin now, and we have to stop the ability to invade Ukraine now. What is my right hon. Friend doing to fight these narratives?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee very much for her perceptive and wise comments. To take her last point first, she is of course absolutely right that we are hoping Congress will follow the lead by passing the relevant Bills swiftly, following its return from recess. United States’s support is absolutely vital for Ukraine’s success, as she so rightly says. I am very glad that she has been able to see for herself what is happening. Sometimes, we understate the extent to which Putin is being beaten back. Although the Russian advance into Avdiivka did take place, those 2 km cost between 40,000 and 50,000 Russian deaths.

One fifth of the Black sea fleet has been destroyed, Crimea is no longer safe for the Russian military to operate in and grain supplies are moving across the Black sea. Revenues for Ukraine are at pre-conflict levels, and unlike in year one, this winter the lights stayed on and the bombings by Russia were unable to achieve the same effect as they achieved before. This war is not affordable for Russia: 40% of Government spending is now spent on the war, or 6% of GDP. This is all in pursuit of the worst atrocities—unmatched—that we have seen in Europe over the last 80 years. It is important to point out that Britain has supplied not only £2.5 billion of military matériel, announced by the Prime Minister, to be supplied this year, but 300,000 artillery shells. That is a measure of our determination to ensure that Ukraine has everything we can offer it.