Ukraine

Chris Bryant Excerpts

Monday 31st October 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I put on record my thanks to my right hon. Friend for the work she did in her time at the FCDO and for the huge energy she brought to the role. She is absolutely right that we are witnessing the perverse situation where Vladimir Putin is trying to impose even greater hunger on people who are already suffering food insecurity and, in some instances, famine. It is absolutely wrong that he does so, and we call on Russia to resume the Black sea grain deal and to extend it. It is deeply, deeply wrong that the world’s poor are forced to suffer even more because Russia has been and is being unsuccessful on the battlefield. I assure her that we will continue to work with Turkey and others to get the deal back in place.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

One of the most depressing, upsetting things that I have seen in the past few days is Russian conscripts in floods of tears, saying, “I don’t want to be cannon fodder; I’m just going to be cannon fodder.” This is a crime against the Russian people as well. I want to ask about the sanctions regime in the UK, because it seems a bit of an own goal and counterproductive if significant people who are being sanctioned by the UK are allowed to have £60,000 a month and £1.5 million to spend on luxurious lifestyles here. And will the Foreign Secretary update us on what has happened to the £3.5 billion from Abramovich’s sale of Chelsea, which was meant to have gone to the reconstruction of Ukraine by now?

[James Cleverly]

I assure the hon. Gentleman that we will continue to work with our international counterparts to make sure that our sanctions are as effective as they can be and to continue to put pressure on the people who are funding Russia’s illegal and unprovoked war in Ukraine. I will seek to get further details on the specific points that he raised on sanctions. He is absolutely right that, in addition to the terrible suffering that Ukrainians are experiencing because of Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Russians are also suffering. Mothers who thought that their sons were going to a training exercise have now found out that those soldiers have been killed on the battlefield. Putin has blood on his hands—Ukrainian blood, Russian blood. It is down to him and almost no one else.