Ukraine

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd February 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

We are hitting them hard now and we will hit them harder in the future. With every day that goes by on which Russia violates the sovereignty and integrity of Ukraine, we will continue to punish Russia. In the end, I do not believe that President Putin has thought this through and I do think that he will fail.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

Putin, as I have been saying for many years, is a bloodthirsty liar. When his ambassador came to the House a couple of weeks ago to talk to the all-party parliamentary group on Russia, he said it was absolutely preposterous that anybody could possibly suggest that any Russian troops would be going into Ukraine. That was a lie—not an inadvertent lie, a deliberate lie. But my anxiety is that we are not going anywhere near far enough today. In 2014, we were spineless in the end. We did not show enough resolve across the west or in the UK. We did not close down the dirty money process coming into the UK. I do not think Abramovic has been sanctioned, incidentally, just to correct the Prime Minister. I do not think he has been sanctioned yet at all. What the former leader of the Conservative party, the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), just said is really important. Everybody in this House will work closely with the Government to deliver far more effective and secure sanctions if the Prime Minister asks, but they have to be now. We have to close the dirty Russian money down.

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are already implementing a draconian package of sanctions and we will go further. We are bringing forward the economic crime Bill and the register of beneficial interests. In addition to all the things I have announced today, we will be bringing forward further measures to hit Russian individuals and Russian companies of strategic importance to Russia, stopping Russian companies from raising money on London markets and stopping them even trading in pounds and dollars. These will bite, these will hurt and these will make a huge difference. But the House also needs to understand that President Putin’s failure will not just be caused by sanctions implemented by us and by our friends. His failure will also result from the determination of the Ukrainians to resist. In that, we will support them.