Ukraine

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to speak in this important debate about the very serious situation in Crimea and Ukraine.

The whole House is agreed that the events of the past two weeks have gone in completely the wrong direction and that what we want to see is the peaceful democratic development of Ukraine. We all know that conflict will set that back. If this crisis is not to escalate, we need to concentrate on bringing down the temperature, but securing Russian participation in meaningful talks about the future will be difficult.

It is clear that a vote with transparent ballot boxes and no international monitors does not reach the required standard for a free choice for Crimean people. When he winds up the debate, will the Leader of the House explain whether we are going to stick with our position on the overriding importance of Ukraine’s territorial integrity, or are we going to discuss what we believe would be a free and fair plebiscite?

As the Foreign Secretary has said, Ukraine should not have to choose between Russia and the EU. It is quite clear that the Russians feel they have a great deal at stake. Their major—possibly the major—concern is the warm-water location of the Black sea fleet. Will the Leader of the House explain how it could be maintained were Ukraine to join NATO?

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

May I reinforce the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth)? My real worry is that the Crimean peninsula is isolated and that the Russians require land access to it, which means coming through eastern Ukraine.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman, whose military expertise goes far beyond mine, makes a very useful point.

As we have previously discussed in the House, we need to look at the behaviour of the new Government in Kiev. The under-representation of Russian speakers from the east and the appointment of two oligarchs as governors of eastern regions does not look inclusive.

When I was in Ukraine a couple of years ago, it was absolutely clear that weak institutional arrangements had been further sapped by a weak political culture and an undeveloped civil society. Virtually every senior politician was supported by an oligarch—unless they had become one themselves—and it was very unclear who controlled whom.

I was therefore extremely concerned to receive e-mails from human rights activists in Ukraine who claimed that British parliamentarians had received money from Dmitry Firtash, a major Ukrainian oligarch. He owns 45% of the Ukrainian gas transit company, which controls Gazprom’s supplies through Ukraine to Europe, and he also owns a major chemical industry in the country. Mr Firtash is estimated to be worth between $600 million and $5 billion. He has been linked to President Yanukovych and even to President Putin.

When I raised the possibility of conflicts of interest with the Foreign Secretary on 4 March, he described my question as “utterly baseless” and “ridiculous in the extreme”. Since then, in an episode described by one analyst to the Financial Times as “seismic”, Mr Firtash has been arrested in Vienna by the Austrian organised crime unit, following a seven-year investigation by the FBI.

We have also learned that Mr Firtash had a meeting at the Foreign Office on 24 February. I hope that the Leader of the House, who will wind up the debate, can tell us whom Mr Firtash met, what was discussed and whether the issue of sanctions or asset freezes was on the agenda. On the same day, the Foreign Secretary said in the House that he wanted to see an “end to pervasive corruption” in Ukraine. We all agree with that, but I notice that Mr Firtash is not at the moment on the sanctions list issued by the EU.

Even the most cursory glance through the Electoral Commission website reveals that in recent years the Conservative party, in various guises, has received nearly £200,000 from associates of Mr Firtash. The Harlow Conservative party has received £40,000 from Mr Shetler-Jones, who was the chief executive officer of Mr Firtash’s holding company, Group DF. Mr Shetler-Jones has given money in his own name and via a company called Scythian, which he owns and of which he is a director.

Earlier in the Parliament, Baroness Neville-Jones was refused the post of National Security Adviser because of her links to Ukrainian oligarchs. She, too, has received money from Mr Shetler-Jones. During the previous Parliament, the Electoral Commission looked into whether Scythian was an active company, but it has not published its findings. It is apparently a consultancy that advises on energy matters, but it is not clear who its clients are.

That is not only a concern in this country but a serious problem from the perspective of Ukraine. Ukraine has lost the equivalent of almost half its annual GDP to outflows into offshore accounts during the past three years. The all-party group on anti-corruption says that a proportion of those funds have been laundered through the UK, that this is a clear example of the damaging role UK companies and individuals play in aiding foreign corrupt officials, and that assets should be identified, frozen and returned without delay. The Foreign Secretary has said that he is working on Ukrainian asset recovery, and I hope that the Government will take a no-holds-barred approach.

[Mr Ben Wallace (Wyre and Preston North) (Con)]

I do not need to repeat the profiling of President Putin that, like the problems, was completely and comprehensively set out by the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but the real challenge at the heart of the issue is how to respond. We could of course do lots of huffing and puffing. There has been plenty of that during the past few years, which is one reason why Mr Putin has felt that he can carry on with impunity.

The most traditional route is that of sanctions. Although I agree with my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington (Sir Malcolm Rifkind), I am afraid that I am slightly cynical about whether we will in the end get to a stage at which sanctions are robust enough to make a difference. The view at large is that sanctions are somehow pain-free, being effective at only one end, but major sanctions usually end up also affecting the people who put them in place. It will take real courage on behalf of the Germans, for example, to push for something in an area such as gas.

There is also the military way to respond. The Foreign Secretary, like many other countries, has been absolutely adamant that a military response is not on the table. I recognise that it is not a political solution or one that would help the situation, but we should not entirely rule out some form of military assistance or aid to the Ukrainian forces, who are equipped with obsolete and rather poor equipment. They are standing guard against the Russian bear almost as a Dad’s Army force at the moment. Russia never hesitates to help Syria with the latest weapons systems when trying to undermine the United Nations or, indeed, the international community. At the very least, expertise in military hospitals should be given to help people who are already suffering.

[Bob Stewart]

I think that we should reinforce the troops in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, because they are on the front line.

[Mr Wallace]

I think that the real thing we must deal with here and now is Ukraine. We must make sure that Ukrainian people have the ability to defend themselves should the Russians overstep the mark.

The long-term solution is of course through economics. It is important to resolve the EU-US free trade treaty to make Mr Putin feel what isolation is like, and to help Europe come to terms with its apparent energy dependency on Russia, which only makes it more and more vulnerable to a man who has proved time and again that he uses energy as a weapon.

There does not always have to be a hot war or a high -stakes conflict for us to face each other down. How quickly we rushed to forget the lessons of the cold war and sought to retire members of the intelligence agencies who were put out to grass when it ended in 1990-91. Let us remember that intelligence agencies around the world helped to change the behaviour of the Soviet Union and to make it collapse from within. Not a month now goes by without people denigrating our intelligence community —most recently thanks to Mr Snowden, who is now enjoying the hospitality of Mr Putin, and there is an irony in that—but they largely understand the Russian bear, know what makes Mr Putin vulnerable and know how to turn up the heat.

Let us remember that the source of Mr Putin’s power is the secret state, in which he can imprison people without trial, and in which he can persecute homosexuals and non-governmental organisations in the Russian state. He gets his power from manipulation, intimidation and corruption, but that is where he is vulnerable. If we can deter and deny him the ability to use that state within Russia and further afield, we can weaken him, and in doing so we can certainly deter him in future.

Let us unleash our intelligence services and capability. Let us no longer be afraid to hide them and run away from the accusations of Snowden. Let us make life a little more uncomfortable for Mr Putin. Let him feel what it is like on the other end of his intimidation in the secret state. Let us not put him in a cold war, but let him feel the cold winds of isolation that we can bring about if we isolate him economically, isolate him militarily and isolate him in his ability to break international law around the world. One cannot be a major player, riding bareback on a horse, if one is isolated from the international stage.