Ukraine

Bob Stewart Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

We work with a number of countries to make very clear that that is unacceptable, and where we can we take steps to frustrate that process. Fundamentally, once weapons systems are in the hands of Russians or on Ukrainian territory, they are legitimate targets for the Ukrainian armed forces, and we have already seen that success. As I said in my statement, this is not always about hardware. Britain’s know-how in ensuring that air defences are better co-ordinated has helped significantly to defeat some of the Iranian drones that are being fired, almost like V-1 bombs from the second world war. It points to the heart of the regime that we are all up against that its solution to failure on the battlefield is to fire those things indiscriminately at civilian infrastructure, and at civilian areas where people live.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend said that we were assisting Ukraine in its air defence against drones, but do we have other troops helping Ukraine within Ukraine?

[Mr Wallace]

We do not need to be in Ukraine to help with our knowledge, and to help to better co-ordinate, explain and train. That is why we have brought nearly 10,000 Ukrainian troops here. Many Ukrainians received specialist troop training outside Ukraine. The Germans and, I think, the Dutch did training on long-range artillery for the Ukrainians, and we obviously helped with combat engineer training in neighbouring states.

I have noticed some misleading media comments about the Royal Marines. We have a small contingent for force protection around the embassy, as would be expected, to ensure that we always protect our diplomats and our areas. We are not directly engaged in conflict with Russia—we have been very clear about that—but we have been providing hardware and know-how to assist Ukraine to defend itself.