Ukraine

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

It is absolutely right that the best way to get attention in the Kremlin and in Moscow generally is to have sanctions that are directed at the individual—like Magnitsky sanctions, for instance; that is what we will be coming forward with—as well as sanctions directed at companies that are of crucial strategic Russian interest.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

In Kyiv and in Kramatorsk last week, we met politicians and community leaders who will not only be worrying for the future of their country, but be fearful for their own lives. I have been saying for a very long time that the arguments that President Putin uses about Russian speakers in Ukraine are exactly the same as Adolf Hitler advanced over the Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia in the 1930s. I agree with the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat), that we need to see full implementation of the “Moscow’s Gold” report. I am sure there will be other sanctions coming—I do not quite understand why we have sanctioned only 25% of the people the American Government have already sanctioned. This House will stand ready alongside the Prime Minister if he needs, for instance, to introduce further legislation to seize Russian assets in the UK and to make sure that the unexplained wealth orders, which have worked in only three cases in the past four years, actually have an effect. We stand ready to stand by the Ukrainian people.

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman very much, and I think he is completely right in his analysis of Russian, and certainly Putin’s, intentions towards Ukraine. I am sure he has read the 5,000-word essay by Vladimir Putin about Ukraine and the origins of Russia. It is clear what the psychological and emotional wellsprings of his thinking are.

I am grateful for what the hon. Gentleman says on sanctions. As he knows, we are bringing forward a statutory instrument greatly to toughen up our ability to sanction people, and I hope he will support it.