Ukraine

Caroline Lucas Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Caroline Lucas (Brighton, Pavilion) (Green)]

Let me start by echoing the fine tribute that the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) gave to Marina Ovsyannikova. Her bravery yesterday was extraordinary, as it has become so deeply dangerous in Russia to tell the truth. Her act of courage has inspired us all, and we wish her all the safety that she can possibly have right now.

I am proud that this House stands so united against the tyrant Putin and his murderous regime, and in support of the determination and extraordinary bravery of the Ukrainian people who face a level of horror and devastation that many have rightly said amounts to war crimes. I want to put on record my support for the many hon, Members who have spoken eloquently about the urgent need for Ministers to waive visas for refugees and to match the compassion and generosity of other EU countries. I share the concerns that have been raised about the lack of speed and scope of some of the policies on sanctions.

I want register my thanks to all those hon. Members who are working with me to put pressure on our own parliamentary pension fund to divest from Russian assets, including from companies such as HSBC which, according to Bloomberg data, owns equity stakes in five of the biggest Russian oil and gas companies.

In the short time available to me, I want to take a step back and focus a little more on what got us into the situation in which we find ourselves and on the action that is needed to tackle Putin’s long-running hybrid war of both violence and disinformation, which has long been in force, including here in the UK. It is an insidious strategy that deliberately undermines our public information sphere and our political institutions, and that deliberately seeks to divide the democracies that might stand up to him over Ukraine.

On disinformation, I suggest that we look no further than what is revealed in the Intelligence and Security Committee’s Russia report, which warned that there was credible, open-source evidence of attempted Russian interference in UK elections. It painted a picture of how Russian state influence in the UK is the new normal, with deep links between the Russian elite and UK politics, and how, crucially, the intelligence community had, in its own words, taken its “eye off the ball” on Russia.

It gives me no pleasure to observe that the Prime Minister is personally responsible for delaying, suppressing and then failing to investigate the Russia report. MPs, including myself, are now having to resort to the courts for a second time to try to get the Prime Minister finally to investigate. We are now going to the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg, alongside the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), the right hon. Member for Exeter (Mr Bradshaw) and representatives from the other place. This curious lack of interest in evidence of Russian state interference in our electoral processes is, frankly, extraordinary, and stands in stark contrast to investigations undertaken in the US.

Then we come to the violence. As the news about Ukraine darkens even further, increasingly we think the unthinkable—would Putin, for example, use chemical weapons? The answer has to be yes, because he has already done so here on UK soil in 2018. The Salisbury nerve agent attack was part of Putin’s long-term strategy, message and hybrid warfare. The amount of nerve agent found in the bottle that was used against the Skripals and that killed Dawn Sturgess was enough

“to kill several thousand people”,

according to a recent interview with Fiona Hill, a former US national security adviser on Russia. Putin wanted us to know that he is prepared to use any weapon.

When Putin sent a weapons-grade nerve agent to Salisbury, it was a military operation and seen as an attack on NATO. As a result, there was far-reaching international co-operation, including sanctions. Our then Foreign Secretary, now Prime Minister, met NATO Foreign Ministers in Brussels for a crucial, highly sensitive meeting about Russia in the wake of that chemical attack on UK soil.

However, we have since learned the shocking news that, immediately following that meeting, the then Foreign Secretary ditched his security and travelled directly to the Italian villa of Evgeny Lebedev, the person with the life peerage who is now under so much scrutiny—the person who, as long as a decade ago, Sir John Sawers, then head of MI6, made clear was not deemed a suitable person to meet. While he was there, the Foreign Secretary also met Evgeny’s father, ex-KGB agent and oligarch Alexander Lebedev.

That raises crucial questions. Did the then Foreign Secretary inform the Prime Minister, the Foreign Office and the security services that he was going to fly from the NATO summit to meet an ex-KGB agent? If so, why was he travelling alone, without his security detail? Did he take classified documents with him? Did he inform the Prime Minister and the security services about the meeting after the trip? Was he debriefed? Did he provide a list of contacts?

Let me be clear: Salisbury was the first use of a chemical weapon in Europe since world war two. It was an attack on NATO soil and, as the Minister responsible for overseeing the British response, our now Prime Minister went straight from a classified meeting with NATO’s Secretary-General and alliance partners to meet a trained Russian intelligence officer. That is surely a national security breach of the highest possible order. That is why investigating that incident, the Russia report and every part of Putin’s arsenal—how he and those linked to him have created dependence and compromise via sports, finance, property, land and energy—is so urgent.

I say that not to score points, but because undermining democracy in the US and Europe was part of Putin’s strategy to divide and confuse the world as he prepared to attack Ukraine. We must be thorough. When the people of Ukraine are dodging bombs and bullets, we should not be dodging the truth.