Ukraine

Debate between Charles Walker and Douglas Alexander

Tuesday 18th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Alexander]

I am certainly happy to echo my hon. Friend’s point about the actions of the Socialist Group in relation to Chechnya, but given the severity of this moment in international affairs, it ill behoves the House to descend into a partisan exchange on which groups our respective representatives belong to in the Council of Europe. I understand that action has been taken by Conservative members of the Council of Europe—I am sure that the Leader of the House will set out the details at the end of the debate today—but it is important to speak with one voice at this critical moment in international affairs.

[Mr Charles Walker]

Does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Russia is not the power that it once was? It is riddled with corruption, and with a population of only 143 million, it has a failing demographic. Male life expectancy there is barely 60. Russia is not the great bear that it pretends to be.

[Mr Alexander]

I find myself in agreement with the hon. Gentleman. There has been too much commentary in recent days on the strategic genius of President Putin. In fact, he has been obliged to act out of weakness, rather than strength. Let us remember that this was the Russian President who viewed a Eurasian union as a credible alternative to the European Union. He has been unable to use soft power to secure the support of his potential allies and neighbours; instead, he has had to use hard power as a consequence of his unpopularity and of his sense of a loss of control following the events that we witnessed on the streets of Kiev.

This is not simply a matter of Russia facing demographic challenges, or of its abject failure to diversify its economy beyond the primary extraction of energy to move towards a more advanced form of economy, or of the very real corruption that continues to bedevil Russian society and the Russian economy; this is also about the fact that Putin is unable to secure the willing support of neighbouring countries, and that he is having to secure support through the use of military force. That represents a significant failure, rather than a success. Let us remember that President Putin has just spent $50 billion trying to accumulate soft power with the Sochi Olympics. What a waste of $50 billion, given that the international community is now seeing the Russian leadership’s true character through its action in Ukraine.