War in Ukraine: Third Anniversary

Andrew Lewin Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2025 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Lewin (Welwyn Hatfield) (Lab)]

Ukraine is a country that never sought war. As we speak today in this House, people who were once administrators, chefs and mechanics are sacrificing their lives on the frontlines to protect their homes and families. It has been a privilege to be in the Chamber today to hear some of the speeches from hon. Members who have been in Ukraine over the last week and have told their stories so powerfully; I thank them for doing that.

The people of Ukraine have, over the past three years, defied the odds at every turn and have a President unmatched in his bravery. President Zelensky looked down a smartphone in February 2022, stared down Putin’s war machine and pledged to defend the right of his sovereign country to exist and the right of his people to be free. He has done so ever since.

Successive Prime Ministers have stood at the Dispatch Box and been absolutely right to offer British military and financial aid. The fight to protect Ukraine is a fight for democracy and for our shared values. For three years this cause has bound together Europe, the United Kingdom and the United States, but there is no doubt that we have reached a crossroads, a moment in time that will shape the future of Ukraine and Europe.

On 14 February, the vice-president of the United States made his keynote address at the Munich security conference. He said:

“The threat that I worry the most about vis-à-vis Europe is not Russia…what I worry about is the threat from within: the retreat of Europe from some of its most fundamental values.”

It was a very sad and serious spectacle: a US vice-president seeming to downplay the significance of Putin’s aggression in Europe—aggression that, as we have heard today, has led to the death of hundreds of thousands of people, with millions more driven from their homes. If his primary concern really is freedom of speech and expression, he would do well to look closer to home. Just this week, journalists from Reuters and Huffington Post were denied access to the first Cabinet meeting of the new US Administration. What I worry about is an agenda that claims to champion free speech but is actually seeking to promote favourable speech. Those are two very different concepts.

The words of the vice-president served as confirmation that a period of US history is ending. The Republican party of Eisenhower and Reagan is sleeping. It may well wake again in time, but for now it lies dormant. In Kyiv, Brussels, Paris, Berlin and here in London, we have to respond to the world as it now is. A peace deal fully supported by the United States and Ukraine and Europe must of course remain the central objective, and our Prime Minister is absolutely right to pursue it. However, as the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) told the House, a deal cannot just mean the absence of war. Peace is what the people of Ukraine deserve, but we must never countenance a settlement that is not agreed to by President Zelensky.

Returning to Munich, there was one sentence in the speech of Vice-President Vance that I could endorse:

“To believe in democracy is to understand that each of our citizens has wisdom and has a voice.”

On that, he is right. Our citizens do have wisdom. In the United Kingdom, they have the wisdom to look to the history of our continent and see the danger of failing to stand up to aggressors until it is too late. They know that now is the time to make our voices heard, and to say loudly and in unison that we stand with Ukraine.