Russia’s Grand Strategy

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I agree with nearly everything the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) has just said, but I am going to make a very different speech, not to disagree with him, but just to put a different tone to this. I have believed for a long time that it is essential to Russia’s grand strategy that it must expand: we knew that in 2008 and again in 2014, and, frankly, we should all have been thoroughly aware of it long before 24 February 2022 when the second invasion of Ukraine happened. I am absolutely clear that we must make sure that Putin and the Russian Federation loses.

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we need to get more materiel to our friends and allies in Ukraine. I do not, however, think that is just a matter for the UK and I worry that sometimes the UK provides, let us say, 12 tanks and Spain provides two and France provides three and none of them work together. The time has come for us all to sit down as allies and ask how we are going to ramp up production of perhaps one or two brands of tank so we are deliberately and solely constructing them to get them to Ukraine as fast as possible. People have been arguing for that for at least a year now, so it is a shame we have not got on with it.

[Mr Francois]

The hon. Gentleman is right because logistically that would make it far easier for the Ukrainians. Leopard is the obvious choice because it is used by so many other allied countries, but German export law currently prevents that unless the Germans waive it. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that they should do that to allow the Ukrainians the Leopards they need?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Yes. I do not do this very often but I was saying “Hear, hear” earlier in agreement with a point the right hon. Gentleman made. I am reluctant to be too down on the Germans, however, for the simple reason that they have had to make a very dramatic and sudden about-turn in their whole understanding of their defence policy, but they do have to get over this hurdle. Many other countries in Europe want them to and are eagerly pressing them to, and the time is long past for them to do so. Perhaps we need a European security treaty to deal with some of these issues and get that materiel to where it is most needed and in a way that it can be readily used.

I want to talk about something slightly different: how we can help Ukraine rebuild. So far, along with many other countries in Europe, we have frozen but not seized assets. On 9 September 2022 a joint statement by the World Bank, the European Commission and the Government of Ukraine estimated that the current cost of reconstruction and recovery in Ukraine was $349 billion. That is now a four-month-old estimate and the sum will grow exponentially as the war continues. We have all seen the pictures of what has happened in Dnipro; we know of the railways, roads and bridges that will have to be reconstructed, let alone the schools, the housing and the rest. Ukraine is going to need a very substantial amount of money.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

The NATO Parliamentary Assembly was in Washington in the first week of December, and at that time 42% of residential properties in the whole of Ukraine—not just on the frontline—were uninhabitable. That serves to put some flesh on the hon. Gentleman’s point.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

That is very helpful and when the Foreign Affairs Committee was in Ukraine last February, just before the second round of the invasion, we were visiting villages which were being reconstructed, and we were wondering whether that was a wise policy, but of course people need homes. So there is a very significant need: Ukraine estimates Russia has caused $1 trillion-worth of damage since the start of the full-scale invasion last February and that is not allowing for the costs in Crimea and parts of Donetsk and Luhansk.

Under international law Russia will owe Ukraine reparations at the end of this war—I hope the Minister will be able to confirm that—as was recognised by a United Nations General Assembly resolution passed on 14 November. About $350 billion-worth of Russian central bank reserves have been frozen by democratic countries around the world, and £26 billion of that is frozen in the United Kingdom. Those figures come from the central bank annual report. Based on the estimates of the World Bank, the European Commission and the Government of Ukraine, the amount that will be owed to Ukraine by Russia as reparations at the end of the war—we could argue it is already owed now—is likely to be several times greater than the central bank reserves theoretically belonging to the Russian state presently frozen worldwide. So it is safe to assume that the central bank reserves we have frozen in the UK are already owed to Ukraine under international law. I would argue that it is a question of when, not if, they will be spent on and in Ukraine. On 30 November 2022 the European Commission President confirmed plans to use €300 billion of frozen Russian central bank reserves as well as more than €19 billion of Russian oligarchs’ funds for the reconstruction of Ukraine, and I applaud that decision.

The UK has so far provided £3.8 billion in aid to Ukraine in the first eight months since the second invasion, but the central bank reserves we are holding in the UK are six times that amount. It is time that the UK Government passed legislation to repurpose frozen Russian state assets so they can be used to aid Ukraine during and after the war; if the Government do not do that, perhaps some Back-Bench MP will bring forward a ten-minute rule Bill on 7 February to do it.

On the whole I do not like Governments seizing other people’s assets; on the whole it is a bad idea, but there are situations in which we choose to do it, such as when the assets are clearly unexplained wealth that has almost certainly come from corruption. In essence, the UK can find money from three places to support Ukraine. It can come from taxpayers, but taxpayers have funded £3.8 billion already so there is not much spare cash in the bank so far as I can see. Secondly, it can come from frozen oligarch funds. There is a difficulty with that as those are the assets of private individuals and seizing them is likely to be a costly and drawn-out process. The legislation necessary to seize such private assets would necessarily involve a court supervision—because we believe in the rule of law—in order to protect the oligarchs’ rights to their property under the European convention on human rights, or for that matter under normal British law. I am sure these cases will also be defended by some of the richest, most legally savvy and deep-pocketed people on the planet, and the resources available to the Government agencies tasked with confiscating those assets would inevitably be very modest. So I think both those routes are pretty much exhausted at present.

On the other hand, seizing state assets of the Russian Federation will be quick. It is a political decision and there will be no lengthy lawsuits. Unlike oligarch assets, these are state assets, specifically the £26 billion of central bank reserves clearly belonging to Russia, a nation deemed an aggressor by the United Nations, that has been ordered by the UN General Assembly and separately by the International Court of Justice to withdraw its troops from Ukraine, and which has failed to do so and continues its aggression against Ukraine. These funds could be made immediately available to Ukraine should we adopt the legislation to do so. Canada already has similar legislation in place.

[Philip Dunne (Ludlow) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman’s case would be considerably enhanced if international courts were to find the Russian military guilty of war crimes during their conduct of this so-called special military operation. Does he agree that that would provide even further justification for what he is arguing?

[Sir Chris Bryant]

It would undoubtedly add a fifth leg to a four-legged stool, but a four-legged stool is strong enough. I do not want to have to wait for that moment to be able to do this, because Ukraine needs the money now to be able to put food on the table and proceed.

There are two further issues that I ought to knock off in case the Minister says, “Oh, well, yes, this is a very good idea but it is terribly difficult to do, you know, and I can’t think that we can possibly get round to doing it”, which is what Ministers nearly always say. That was not meant to be an impersonation of the Minister currently on the Government Front Bench; it was an impersonation of any normal Minister when they get to the Dispatch Box and hear somebody proposing something difficult or courageous.

First, there is sovereign immunity. State assets are almost always protected from seizure by the concept of sovereign immunity. However, there have been exceptions, such as to satisfy damages awarded by international courts and arbitral tribunal. I would argue that Russia’s continuing refusal to comply with international human rights law—and this goes to the point just made—by attacking civilian housing and infrastructure, and its wilful refusal to follow orders of the International Court of Justice and the United Nations General Assembly are ample grounds for creating such an exemption.

There is also a point about retaliation. Some argue that if we seize their assets, they may seize ours. To be honest, I think it is pretty likely that the vast majority of British assets in the Russian Federation have already been lost, written off or expropriated by the Russian Government.

Finally, some say that countries may choose not to keep their reserves in the United Kingdom if they believe that they can be seized. However, if we severely restrict when reserves can be seized, that concern is minimised. Furthermore, if we acted in concert with our allies to seize the reserves, as we did when we froze them, we could create a powerful disincentive for states to engage in unlawful acts of aggression. I think we should do that. The reserves of an aggressor would never be safe, as there would be no country with a stable currency to protect them.

In the end, we want to ensure that a war of aggression, which has never been formally declared to be a war crime in itself, is seen to be a way in which an aggressor loses their assets. I urge the Government to consider that process carefully so that we can ensure that Russian state assets go to Ukraine as soon as possible.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Chair of the Defence Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on securing this debate, which has the same title as the debate last January. In preparing for today, I have read what he and other Members said then. I think it is very generous to talk about a Russian “grand strategy” because I regard Russia’s leadership in the Kremlin as an opportunist outfit. Russia loves the idea of a divided west and when it sees us divided it takes full advantage, especially when it can smell western weakness, a lack of will or disinterest.

I am not going to come up with any fine words on this subject—certainly none as fine as those of a predecessor MP for Tiverton, Lord Palmerston. In 1858, he wrote:

“The policy pursued by the Russian Government has always been to push forward its encroachments as fast and as far as the apathy or want of firmness of other Governments would allow it to go, but always to stop and retire when it was met with decided resistance, and then to wait till the next favourable opportunity”.

I would like to draw on a couple of examples from the past 125 years in which we have continued to see imperial Russia or the Soviet Union taking an expansionist approach, only to be pinned back by western democracies and others. I would also say that we should avoid throwing all caution to the wind, because the root of Russia’s approach, in my view, is injured pride—not just in the Kremlin, but among most Russian people. Finally, the House should think not only about a grand strategy for the UK, but about a strategy for NATO. We need to work collaboratively with our NATO allies to ensure that the alliance is working on a strategy.

We all know that Putin’s historical essays have been entirely discredited by historians, but they are useful to us. They are a useful guide to his intent: I think he models himself on some of his predecessors from the 17th and 18th centuries. At the end of the 18th century, Catherine the Great is supposed to have said of her enormous land empire:

“I have no way to defend my borders but to extend them.”

That certainly fits in with what went on during her reign: after she came to power, the country’s westernmost border moved from east of the River Dnipro to west of Kyiv, so we can see that Putin has some stand-out role models from the time of the Tsar and the years before that.

What we have been seeing in Russia in the past 15 years is a restoration of pride following a period of imperial collapse. Of course there is no direct comparison with the UK, but if we want a sense of how Russians feel, some Conservative Members may remember how they felt in the early 1980s when there was, perhaps, a restoration of British pride after having had to manage the economy in the 1970s with the aid of a loan from the International Monetary Fund. It is that feeling that your country has been put down and is coming back—the rising of a phoenix from the flames.

Yet in the Kremlin, Russia is intimidated by the lack of attractiveness of its centralised political tradition: its post-communist neighbours are attracted by western co-operative structures. Before last year, I thought that those in the Kremlin who are responsible for Russian grand strategy knew the difference between coercion and violence—coercion might involve the threat of violence, but would stop short of using force—but we have seen that that is not true.

This debate is so useful for thinking about grand strategy partly in terms of ends: if we think of grand strategy in terms of ends, ways and means, it is useful for us to think today about the Kremlin’s intent. There have tended to be reasons why Russia has on occasion seemed willing to permit Ukraine to be independent of it. In 1918, the first world war having ended, Lenin said:

“We need both hands free”,

and permitted Ukraine to become independent. In 1991, Yeltsin had his own motive for enabling Ukraine to become free: to sideline Gorbachev as President of the Soviet Union.

But that is history. I was so encouraged to hear the NATO Secretary-General, Jens Stoltenberg, saying in December 2021 that

“that’s the kind of world we don’t want to return to, where big powers had a say, or a kind of right, to put limitations on what sovereign, independent nations can do”.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Surely the key moment was the signing of the Budapest accord. Was there not something of a failing on the part of this country and others? It was an innocent failing, but we signed up to something that was so nebulous that it could never really be enforced, although in theory it looked as if we were guaranteeing the territorial integrity of Ukraine, in exchange for which it surrendered its nuclear weapons.

[Richard Foord]

I entirely agree. The Budapest memorandum was not worth the paper it was written on. It had no legal standing; even the word “guarantee” has different meanings in different languages, and the Ukrainians could certainly have interpreted it very differently from the British, Americans and others who drafted it.

During military conflicts in which the UK has been engaged over the last two or three decades, we have heard the claim that we have no quarrel with the people of “X”—insert Serbia or Iran—but only with its Government or, often, its dictator, but I do not think we can repeat that claim in this instance. When we look at opinion polling in Russia, it is pretty staggering to see how much popular support there is for the war in Ukraine. According to what has been said by Ukrainians I have talked to in the last couple of weeks, they regard the fact that we talk in the west about Putin or Putin’s war as successful propaganda on the part of Russia. They would much prefer us to talk about Russia in the round, and attribute responsibility much more broadly than to just one man in the Kremlin. I also think we need to avoid driving our competitors and our adversaries into Russia’s orbit; not least, we need to avoid knocking China into Russia’s open arms.

We need to think of the UK’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in terms of a NATO strategy, rather than the UK’s grand strategy alone. In that context, it is worth recalling a 19th-century musical hall song. You will be relieved to know, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I shall not attempt to sing it. Members will have heard the lyrics before:

“the rugged Russian Bear

Full bent on blood and robbery, has crawled out of his lair…

We don’t want to fight but by jingo if we do,

We’ve got the ships, we’ve got the men, and got the money too!”

That is an anachronism today. The UK cannot boast the ships, or the money or, certainly, the men in the Army.

Let me end with another quotation, this time from Winston Churchill. We will all have heard his famous characterisation of Russia as

“a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma”,

but it is less well known that he went on to say:

“perhaps there is a key. That key is Russian national interest. It cannot be in accordance with the interest or safety of Russia that Germany should plant itself upon the shores of the Black Sea”.

We need to bear in mind that Germany is cautious because it has good reason to be cautious, given its history. Instead of criticising our allies, we should come up with a strategy, with our allies, that sees Ukraine defend its borders and defeat Russia.

--- Later in debate ---

[Alec Shelbrooke]

We were having those debates, not least in the NATO Parliamentary Assembly. There was a Rose-Roth seminar of the Parliamentary Assembly in Kyiv in June 2016. The Ukrainians could not have been clearer to the allies who were there about what the invasion of Crimea meant, and it was brushed aside because there were too many vested interests in the way energy policy was going at the time and, quite frankly, because there was disbelief that anything like this would happen.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

As I understand it, when Foreign Office officials made that point to the then Foreign Secretary, who subsequently became Prime Minister, he pooh-poohed the idea of arming Ukraine.

[Alec Shelbrooke]

We can find examples from across Government over that period of time. When the invasion happened just under a year ago, many conversations took place, and still take place to this day, along the lines of, “Well, Putin is terminally ill.” “Look at Putin’s face, he has a terminal disease.” “This is the act of a dying man.” People were trying to make excuses for him to understand why he did it. They should just accept that the man is a fascist dictator who is trying to expand the Russian empire. There is the answer; it is as simple as that. But still our natural instinct says that this is so far beyond what anybody would expect that there must be another reason behind it.

The hon. Member for Rhondda is correct that people, whoever they were—in this case, it was the then Foreign Secretary—simply did not believe that this would happen. That was true among many of our European allies, but given what we now know, we must be aware that it will go beyond Ukraine. There is no point in saying that Putin would not dare to move into NATO territory. If he wins in Ukraine, then, yes, he will. It is not just Putin, but the Russian set-up—the Russian leadership. There are people beneath Putin who will carry on this war if he were to go. This involves not just one person, but a regime.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dave Doogan]

There’s your thanks for making a conciliatory point in a debate on a matter on which we agree almost entirely. I will not answer that remark other than to say that, far from an obsession, worrying about independence is literally a noble pursuit.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Will the hon. Gentleman allow me to intervene?

[Dave Doogan]

No. I am going to make progress.

The hon. Member for Harwich and North Essex touched on why we are sending only 12 tanks. The reason is that we have scarcely three times that amount that are serviceable to send. He wants to send 124. That would be great, and I hope that, by sending the 12, the Leopard 2s will come forth from other NATO allies within Europe.

I do not know how accurate the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) knows he was when he said that the United Kingdom was missing a real trick by trying to replace Challenger 2 with Challenger 3. We should be replacing them with Leopards and getting them built on these islands, which would be a perfectly realistic opportunity and far preferable industrial strategy.

We need to have a long look at the intelligence—and more specifically, the analysis of that intelligence—gathered by the UK and the west before the conflict became a hot war. Our ally Germany steadfastly refused to see what was plainly under its nose until it became a kinetic affair, and the UK and the west made significant miscalculations about the strength of Russia’s conventional forces, instead favouring an obsession with their high-end capability without realising that they are very thin in mass and scale—they have not contributed a great deal to the outcomes of the conflict so far.

In his summing up, I hope the Minister might address the Russian military studies centre at Shrivenham, which, putting it diplomatically, has not benefited from the most robust investment over the years and should probably benefit from more.

Although we have proved Putin wrong in his analysis of the western allies’ ability to cohere and to resolve to put up with the privations of this situation, our support for Ukraine, while being the right thing to do, has to endure with all available pace to bring this conflict and its consequences, both in Ukraine and throughout the world, to an end as soon as possible.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Leo Docherty)]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) for securing this important debate. I am also grateful for the other knowledgeable contributions from hon. and right hon. Members, and I will try to cover as many of their points as I can.

I would like to start, however, by offering my deepest condolences to the families of Ukraine’s Interior Minister, Denys Monastyrsky, and his team of civilians who were killed in the tragic helicopter crash in Ukraine yesterday. He was a true friend of the United Kingdom and a true patriot of Ukraine, and we are ready to support Ukraine in whatever way we can.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex put forward a strident case in outlining Putin’s grand strategy and, in his view, the lack of one on the UK’s side. He posed some interesting questions with regard to the integrated review refresh. He questioned the Indo-Pacific tilt and the validity of the AUKUS agreement, and he called for strong land forces, which is something I certainly agree with. He pointed out that we need to increase the tempo of our support to Ukraine; of course, we support that. He also pointed out that Putin’s calculation is one of time—his belief is that his ability to suffer will outlast the patience of western allies. I agree; that is, indeed, Putin’s calculation. My hon. Friend suggested that we were being too timid and too slow in our support. I refute that, because I think our actions over the last year, especially on the provision of lethal aid, have shown that we have led the way, and others have followed.

In terms of my hon. Friend’s central point, I acknowledge the fact that, while Putin has had a grand strategy, the last year has shown that it is, in simple terms, failing. Our response has shown that, when we put our mind to it, we can succeed. Our strategy over the last year is one of success. If we measure the success of strategy as whether or not we can deliver our policy, Putin’s failure to deliver his own policy in Ukraine has shown the failure of his strategy, and our success in supporting our Ukrainian friends has shown the success of our collective strategy.

Our response is built on four pillars. The first is a recognition that it is about hard power, and that is why we led the way in delivering the NLAW, which was a tactical weapon that took on strategic consequence. Just over a year later, that has led to us providing the Challenger 2 tanks, which hopefully will open the door for others. We recognise that it is about the provision of hard power.

We also recognise that alliance is hugely important in this. Russia has a very long border but is very short of friends. If we look at the collection of nations that are supporting our heroic Ukrainian friends, we see a determined, resolute and hugely capable group of countries that are providing an awesome amount of support. Collectively, in terms of their military power, GDP and so on, they represent a very important and powerful alliance.

The third pillar is resolve. I have mentioned that Putin will be testing our patience this year and thereafter, and we must be confident that our capacity to remain committed to our Ukrainian friends can outlast Putin’s judgment about his ability to force his people to suffer.

Fourthly, our strategy takes us into other domains. My hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex did not mention energy, but our collective response in the west and globally in fighting back against Putin’s weaponisation of energy supply has been immensely effective. No one would have thought several years ago that the Germans would have weaned themselves off Russian supply within a short space of months, at huge cost and inconvenience. It has been remarkable. The pan-European and global response to the weaponisation by Putin of his energy supply has been heartening and terrific. Of course, we must keep that effort up, but we should be very proud of our response, and that is because of the leadership of western nations. I am very grateful for my hon. Friend’s remarks.

I turn to the comments of other Members. The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) posed some good questions about our reconstruction effort. He will know that we are hosting a conference in June this year to focus nations on that and hopefully bring a flow of capital to Ukraine, to help its reconstruction. He asked some good questions about reparations. Of course, we are exploring all options. There is an army of lawyers looking at all this. We are seeking to be creative. He posed some interesting technical questions. All of this is under consideration, and we will update the House as and when we can.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

Will the Minister give way?

[Leo Docherty]

If the hon. Gentleman is very snappy.

[Sir Chris Bryant]

I prefer an army of troops, rather than an army of lawyers.

[Leo Docherty]

We will keep the hon. Gentleman up to date.

The Chairman of the Defence Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), put this matter in a cogent, historical context, for which I was most grateful, but we should be confident that our resolve will outlast Putin’s determination to make his own people suffer. He pointed out that there is a global contest between authoritarian regimes, and those who value democracy and open economies, and that is particularly important in terms of the role of China. He made a powerful call for resolve. I think we are showing that but of course we must be ever vigilant. We can take nothing for granted.

The hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins) made a powerful reflection on her visit to Kharkiv at the end of last year. She mentioned Putin’s desperation as illustrated by his barbaric assault on the critical national infrastructure of that country, and I was grateful for her remarks.

My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) referred to his important work in the Council of Europe. We continue to be grateful for his work in that forum. He said we must keep our eyes open, and we certainly agree, because the price of freedom is eternal vigilance. We will keep our eyes open and I commend his remarks.

The hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord) made an interesting reference to Palmerston’s approach in the 1850s. They knew a lot about UK-Russian relations in the 1850s. He also referred to Churchill’s famous reference to Russia, but there is no actual riddle these days: we know exactly what Putin is. He is a bloodstained tyrant bent on imperial conquest, so there is no mystery.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Elmet and Rothwell (Alec Shelbrooke), the chair of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly delegation, urged us to guard against hubris, which I thought was an eloquent way of calling for ongoing resolve. He pointed out the importance of NATO’s cohesion and continued determination, for which I was grateful. He reflected interestingly on his meeting, while a Minister, with the Ukrainian forces. That ongoing training had its genesis in Operation Orbital. It has been running since 2015 and is something of which we are immensely proud. I am grateful to him for bringing that to the House’s attention.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) referred to his visit to Ukraine and the admirable work of Siobhan’s Trust and the magnificent David Fox-Pitt clad in his Ukrainian kilt. I hope to see my right hon. Friend modelling that at some stage. He used that example to give us a powerful insight into the horrendous civilian cost of Putin’s barbaric war. That is why we are proud to have given some £220 million-plus purely in humanitarian support and we will continue to do all that we can in the humanitarian sector. He said that the plea from those he met was, “Please don’t forget us.” I can assure him that the UK Government absolutely will not forget them. We will continue to do all we can, not just in the humanitarian sector but in long-term reconstruction. That is the point of June’s conference.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) pointed out Putin’s fading support globally, and the fact that some of the nations that have been aligned with him now question the validity or utility of being partnered with a failing nation and someone who is losing. I thought that was useful. She talked about his outrageous weaponisation of global food supply, which we are seeking to counter through the Black sea grain initiative. She also made an important reference to the malign role of the Wagner Group, which concerns us all. I am grateful for her comments.