Ukraine (UK Relations with Russia)

Edward Leigh Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, who is also an honourable friend, because I had intended to mention that. He is absolutely right that President Putin recently made a speech in which he referred to the sacral nature—I think he used that word—of Crimea to the Russian people because Prince Vladimir had been christened there. That all occurred before the present state of Russia emerged, so to seek to justify an entirely illegal occupation and the subsequent oppression of both the Ukrainian population in Crimea and the Tatar population seems to me wholly ridiculous. I must say that I have sympathy with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

I obviously do not want to inflate President Putin’s ridiculous comments, but the west has a slight problem. Crimea was part of Russia from the end of the 18th century. It is heavily dominated by ethnic Russian speakers who wish to be part of Russia. It was given to Ukraine by a diktat of Khrushchev in 1956. Unfortunately, whatever one may think of President Putin, the Russians in Crimea have some right to self-determination.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I would not disagree with what my hon. Friend has said. However, in whatever circumstances it occurred, Crimea became part of the sovereign territory of Ukraine, as has been recognised since the war by all legal bodies. Indeed, it was accepted by Russia, which signed up to international agreements recognising that fact.

The wishes of the Russian-speaking community in Crimea are very unclear. Opinion polls taken before the Russian intervention showed that although a large number of people were Russian speakers and therefore different from Ukrainian speakers, the majority of the population nevertheless wanted Crimea to remain part of Ukraine. It is not at all clear that before the recent events in Crimea a majority wanted to join the Russian Federation. Certainly the attempts by the Russians to demonstrate that through what, as I have said, was an entirely bogus referendum are unconvincing. The argument applies most strongly in Crimea but in eastern Ukraine too. There are people whose first language is Russian and who feel a close association with Russia, but that does not necessarily mean that they want to leave Ukraine and become part of the Russian Federation.

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[Mr Whittingdale]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I have not always been the biggest fan of the European convention on human rights, for other reasons. Nevertheless, membership of the Council of Europe requires one to subscribe to the basic conditions of human rights. Russia is so far outside meeting those standards that it would be wholly ridiculous to suggest that we should now reinstate its voting rights in the Council.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I, too, am a member of the Council of Europe. I personally think there is no real possibility of us voting to restore Russia’s voting rights, but I would be opposed to kicking Russia out of the Council of Europe. The Council of Europe is a parliamentary union that often involves states we do not agree with, but with which we may achieve some movement. It may be a forlorn hope, but jaw-jaw is always better than war-war.

[Mr Whittingdale]

That is very much my view too. We have to keep talking to Russians. I will come on to say something about that, and we should take advantage of forums, but the Council of Europe represents certain values. At the moment, Russia does not appear to subscribe to those values.

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[Sir Richard Ottaway (Croydon South) (Con)]

I apologise for not being able to stay for the winding-up speeches; I mean no disrespect to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or to the Minister.

I very much agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) has said. The alarm bells are ringing here. Of all the international hot spots at the moment, this is probably the most dangerous and possibly the one that threatens the UK the most.

It is interesting that Ukraine is helping to flag up Russia’s direction of travel. Much as the Chinese attitude towards Hong Kong flags up China’s current direction of travel, what is happening in Ukraine flags up where Russia is going. My main concern is that unless there is a breakthrough—it does not seem very likely at the moment—this will become a frozen conflict, which we will have to live with for a long time.

Since the ceasefire was agreed on 5 September, more than 1,000 people have been killed. New talks were meant to start yesterday, but I believe that they will start tomorrow. Let us hope that we can then have a real ceasefire. The Russians are clearly breaking the old one. They are clearly sending in troops. They deny that, pointing to private militias over which they say they have no control, which is absolute piffle. Let me pick up a point that was made earlier by my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth). It is feared that Mariupol will be the next target, so that the Russians can build a land corridor to Crimea along the south coast.

The economic situation in Ukraine is dire. The country is in recession, there have been serious outflows of cash and there is a drain on the reserves. The manufacturing part of the country is in the disputed areas in the east, and it is beginning to look as though the Russian tactic is to target that aspect of the economy and bring about an economic meltdown that will destabilise Kiev. In May, the International Monetary Fund pledged $17 billion; $10 billion, in one form or another, was pledged by others, but is proving much harder to collect. Despite those funds, however, the situation is deteriorating. It is estimated that at least another $12 billion to $15 billion will be needed, and there is a big question mark over where it will come from and who will supply it. Moreover, it is clear that much more money is needed to pay for the defence of the country.

All this is causing political tensions. Elections took place in October, and I think we were all pretty relieved about that, but the coalition is already beginning to look a little shaky. The House should send the message that coalitions can indeed be shaky, but together people can actually achieve something. I urge the members of the coalition to stay together and swallow their differences, because if the coalition were to fall apart now, it would be absolutely disastrous. It would send the wrong message, and would dampen the enthusiasm of those of us who are committed to supporting the country.

The other piece of political advice that I would give the Ukrainians is that they must stay close to the European Union. Throughout all this—through thick and thin—it has always been the European Union that has stood by them. The EU is the only body that has been able to stand up to Russia. It was EU mediation that sorted out the gas supplies, it is the EU that is brokering the next ceasefire talks, and it is the EU that is imposing sanctions and maintaining them. As I look around the Chamber and see some of my more Eurosceptic colleagues, I feel that I should point out that the EU sometimes has its advantages and its values.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Will my right hon. Friend give way? [Laughter.]

[Sir Richard Ottaway]

I will not, if my hon. Friend does not mind. I would not object to being drawn on a lot of points, but I do not want to become involved in an argument with him about that particular issue. I do not think that the EU can be blamed for all this. There is much more to it in the history. Indeed, my hon. Friend has talked about the history himself.

I believe that sanctions are the only action that Russia will understand. When they were first imposed, they were described as “pathetic” , but—as was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon—they are working and proving effective, and they may yet be what brings Russia to the negotiating table.

After the unexpected visit of Mr Hollande, the President of France, to meet President Putin at the airport—which rather surprised us all—Putin told reporters, “We need to resolve” the conflict, and said that Russia respected Ukraine’s territorial integrity and wanted to see it restored. Good for Mr Hollande, I say, but can we believe it, and do we think it will happen? I suppose, in Mr Putin’s mind, such matters often depend on whether it is the morning or the afternoon, such are his mood swings. The House will be interested to know that they also appeared to resolve the helicopter carriers dispute, with Mr Putin saying that France can keep them providing it returns the money, which is an interesting straw in the wind, and it remains to be seen whether France does return the money.

More significant is the intervention of Angela Merkel who has made sweeping criticisms of Russia, and accused the Russians point-blank of creating problems. It is important to remember her background, as someone who comes from eastern Germany and who understands what it is like to be under Soviet occupation. After the G20 summit in Brisbane she warned that Russia’s ambitions stretched beyond Ukraine, which is a very serious accusation to make. She said that it is trying to make some Baltic states “economically and politically dependent.” She then went on to remind us all that article 5 of the NATO treaty applies to all allies, which is probably the most significant part of this, and reflects the concern being felt in Berlin at the moment about the developing situation. Of course, Ukraine wants to be a member of NATO so it has the umbrella of article 5, and the question for all of us is whether we could possibly defend Ukraine, and I am not sure we could, frankly, so I think we have to be very careful before we get too drawn into that debate.

The Baltics have to be our priority. I think the Baltics are a red line for us all, and I am pleased that the Prime Minister has more than once confirmed from the Dispatch Box that that is the position of the British Government. I also welcome the deployment that has taken place there, and I am sure that if the situation in the Baltics deteriorates further, provisional plans are in place.

Over recent months we have seen 40 unusual aircraft intrusions into the region. The Russians are clearly testing response times, and they have been probing UK airspace, too, and I understand that right now the Royal Navy is keeping an eye on Russian warships doing exercises in the channel. The big question for us all now is whether we should be doing more on the defence side. That is something we will have to keep a close eye on.

My fear is that the situation will get worse before it gets better. No less a person than former President Gorbachev said in an interview with Tass, the state-owned news agency:

“Now there are once again signs of a cold war.”

This process can, and must, be stopped. After all, we did it in the ’80s: we opted for de-escalation and the reunification of Germany, and back then the situation was a lot tougher than now, so we could do it again.

This reflects the fact that there are serious tensions inside the Kremlin at the moment, and one often speculates about what on earth is going on there. There are clearly two camps. There is what is known as the Siloviki, those who have a background in security and/or the military, and there are the economic liberals who are concerned about the economic situation in Russia.

That dispute inside the Kremlin will intensify with western isolation. As my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon pointed out, the Russian economy is now in freefall: the rouble is plummeting and the oil price is wreaking havoc with the Russian economy. What President Gorbachev did not say in his interview is that that is exactly what happened last time, and it may be that that brings Russia to the negotiating table—maybe Mr Putin’s conversation with President Hollande was not just a flippant remark, and maybe second thoughts are going on.

Russia is clearly now flailing around. It is resorting to the old tactic of unpredictable testing of EU reactions by cancelling the South Stream gas pipeline from Russia to Europe, which I suspect is more cover for economic weakness. That may force the EU to look more urgently for alternative gas supplies, which I think we would all welcome, even though it may well cause division inside the EU.

We have to keep our resolve. We have to keep united and stand by Ukraine both in NATO and the European Union.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

I am delighted to have been able to catch your eye, Madam Deputy Speaker. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale) for securing the debate. He and I went to Ukraine about a month ago and visited the Prime Minister, Mr Yatsenyuk. I agree with my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Sir Richard Ottaway) when he says that the situation in Ukraine is extremely serious. I have used parallels before, and there are parallels with the German annexation of the Sudetenland. First, they caused trouble with their own German speakers, then they used that as a pretext to go in with military force. That is exactly what has happened with Ukraine. Let us see where this might go.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I must intervene. It is a grotesque insult to Russia, which suffered appallingly at the hands of the Nazis, to equate in any way the Russian Government, for all their faults, with the Nazis. That is just the sort of remark that fills the Russian people with absolute despair. They were raped and pillaged and there were 50 million dead. I hope that my hon. Friend is not making any kind of equation.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown]

Well, I’m afraid I am. Actually, if we look at what happened to the Russian people after the war, we see that they experienced significant suffering, just as some of the German people did during the war. I am just pointing out that what the Russians have done in Ukraine is just as unacceptable as what the German Nazis did during the war. As long as we understand that, we will all appreciate which way we should go forward.

Relations between Ukraine and Russia obviously remain tense, and that is a concern for the UK and the wider world. It is encouraging that the situation seems to have improved in the past few days, but there are still reasons to be extremely worried about the stability of the region and the impact that the situation could have on the United Kingdom.

As I said, I recently visited Ukraine with my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon and we met the Prime Minister, Arseniy Yatsenyuk. We met the head of defence and the American and British Ambassadors to Ukraine. We also met the leaders of four political parties. My visit to Ukraine, which took place during the summer, showed me in demonstrable form the dire situation that Ukraine has found itself in since the current round of tensions with Russia began. The former President Victor Yanukovych sent his commissars around businesses and absconded with several billion pounds when he fled to Russia. That added to Ukraine’s already parlous financial situation, leading to the devaluation of the hryvnia against the dollar, with the currency hitting a 10-year low. Naturally, that has made it more difficult for Ukraine to buy much-needed foreign goods.

It seems that the situation in the region might have improved over the past few days, with the news that a ceasefire in the east of the country between Ukrainian forces and pro-Russian rebels seems to be holding, and with hopes of further talks in Belarus tomorrow. Let us hope that the day of silence called by President Poroshenko will hold, and offer real hope of a lasting truce, rather than simply being a lull before a new round of military action.

It is welcome that Russia has resumed gas supplies to Ukraine after months of difficult talks. This will be a substantial help to Ukraine during the winter. The annexe to the House of Commons Library briefing shows just how important this is to Ukraine, as it imports 25.1 billion cubic metres of Russian gas. I know that the Ukrainian Prime Minister will welcome this development, as getting through the winter was precisely what he was concerned about when we spoke during my visit. When I asked him what would be the most appropriate assistance for the west to give, he shrugged his shoulders and suggested everything from military uniforms through to the most sophisticated weaponry to combat the supplies being provided to the rebels by Russia. We know that the west is not going to supply any such sophisticated weaponry. As if to emphasise his point, he said:

“We have a very difficult winter to get through”.

Additionally, we have seen reports that TB, hepatitis, HIV and AIDS are spreading largely unchecked as a result of fighting in eastern Ukraine, caused by a lack of medical supplies. Luhansk and Donetsk saw the most deaths from TB in Ukraine last year and the highest co-infection rates of HIV and TB. This is yet another reason why it is in Ukraine’s interest to normalise the situation, so that the people are not condemned to suffer from those illnesses.

As I have said, the situation seems to have stabilised slightly. Reports of the ceasefire holding are much more encouraging than the reports we were receiving until recently which told of daily violations of the ceasefire. However, we must be open to the fact that relations between Russia and Ukraine remain tense. Ukraine is resolute against more land grabs by Russia. The Ukrainian Government are maintaining solidarity, as we heard, with their citizens in Crimea by continuing to supply them with food and water. The Prime Minister was most resolute that most Russian speakers in the east of Ukraine did not want to secede from Ukraine and be reunited with Russia, and that in the west of Ukraine there was almost 100% support for closer relations with Europe. Given that support for a united Ukraine, the Government are and should be committed to maintaining their territorial integrity, and we should support them in any way we can in that.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon has mentioned, those statements from the Ukrainian Prime Minister were exemplified by the recent elections in Ukraine in October, when the old Party of Regions did not even feature on the ballot paper, while the President’s, Prime Minister’s and the Mayor of Lviv’s parties received a combined 54.93% share of the votes cast. That was a vote in favour of a pro-European direction, and it shows a clear intention of the people of Ukraine that they favour closer links with Europe.

However, Russia, has until now not been listening to the democratic results in Ukraine. The universal view we found in Ukraine was that Putin is not finished yet. So what is likely to happen? A minority thought he would carry out a big military offensive, including establishing a Mariupol corridor to supply Crimea. That is difficult in the winter because the barges cannot go across the Black sea. We were told that in such circumstances Ukrainians would defend themselves with whatever they had. However, as my hon. Friend said, we were also told that 70% of their tanks had already been taken out by the Russians. The majority view, and possibly the one to which I would subscribe, is that Putin will keep causing relatively minor trouble wherever he can in order to destabilise the whole country, with the aim of bringing about a failed state. At this point, the Americans and the EU would have to decide whether they wanted to bail Ukraine out. Many people think that Putin’s aim is to gain control of the whole of the north coast of the Black sea, including Odessa, and eventually, as my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) said, move along to Transnistria in Moldova. Certainly, the Romanians and the Poles, in neighbouring states, are very alarmed by that prospect.

The future of our bilateral relations depends on Putin’s strategy. Clearly, the illegal seizure of Crimea is sufficient rationale for Britain to lead Europe, along with the USA, in the implementation of strong sanctions. In an intervention on my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon, I alluded to the fact that if there were to be further military action along the lines I have indicated, for example, taking a Mariupol corridor, we would have to consider ratcheting up the sanctions regime further. As others have said in this debate, the sanctions have already worked, with a 40% devaluation of the rouble against the dollar, a plummeting stock exchange and the drying up of foreign investment, all of which is compounded by a falling oil price—it was below $64 a barrel yesterday. This has all pushed up the cost of Russian borrowing from just under 8% in December 2013 to 12% today, and has led to President Putin saying in his annual state of the nation address that Russia would go into recession in 2015, with the economy ministry predicting a contraction of 0.8% instead of the previous prediction of an increase in GDP of 1.2%.

If tensions between Ukraine, Russia, the UK and the rest of the EU are to be reduced, we must develop a more intelligent relationship between all these players. We must recognise that deep within the Russian psyche is the perception that their hegemony is being encroached on by the west; the Russians’ fear is that if Ukraine integrates further with the EU, their geopolitical sphere of influence will diminish. Geopolitics is incredibly important to Russia, perhaps more important than economic success. That could be why, despite the deteriorating economy, Putin’s personal approval ratings are currently running at 80%.

There are many areas where we could be co-operating with the Russians which we have simply had to close off. For example, we could co-operate in relation to the Islamic threat, as Russia faces a huge Islamic threat on its southern flank. There are many other areas on which we could be co-operating but are not able to do so at the moment.

If it is in Russia’s interest to have economically stable countries on its border, we must continue to emphasise the benefits of that. For example, it would be able to form strong bilateral trade agreements to its mutual advantage. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South has said, the alternative is for Europe to diversify its oil and gas supplies away from Russia, which would hit it badly, especially with the low oil price at the moment. Russia may have started looking east towards China to sell its oil and gas, but it will always need the European markets, technology and expertise.

Closer economic co-operation between Russia and the EU was beginning to happen under Gorbachev, but it has since fallen off the cliff edge. We must try to reinstate that again. Improving economic relations and trying to convince the Russians that mutual economic success is more important than geopolitics will lead to better political and diplomatic relations between the UK, EU, Ukraine and Russia. After all, we are all Europeans at heart.

Although things may be improving slightly between Ukraine and Russia, relations remain incredibly poor. There is concern that this improvement in the past week or so is simply a lull to allow both sides to regroup. It is in everyone’s interest to improve these relations and to achieve stability.

To improve relations between Ukraine, the UK and Russia, we must remind the Russians that we are all Europeans and that, instead of suffering from sanctions, we could all enjoy much greater economic success by putting geopolitics to one side and co-operating. Allowing Ukraine to flourish, as Poland did, could be a huge benefit to Russia. We should be encouraging closer economic co-operation, which will in turn develop into closer political relations.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

What we are witnessing over Ukraine is a clash between two systems of international relations: the western liberal system held up by the US, the UK and Europe versus the more traditional power politics epitomised by Russia. That was highlighted by a comment by the US Secretary of State, who said:

“You just don’t in the 21st century behave in a 19th-century fashion”.

With all due respect to Mr Kerry, Russia has, quite simply, proved him wrong. We in the west like to imagine that our liberal system is the universal way, but the reality is that traditional power politics is much more dominant in the rest of the world. I make no defence of that; I just make the comment. Although our own actions are coated in thick veneers of liberalism and democracy, to which we no doubt generally adhere, this idealistic terminology masks the reality that we ourselves deal with the world through old-fashioned power politics.

For years, the EU, the US and the west generally have interfered in the internal politics of Ukraine in an effort to draw that country away from Russia and towards us—Ukraine has for three centuries been part of Russia. Russia has tried to counter those moves, and even though we might demonise Mr Putin, there is no conceivable leader of the Russian Federation who would not have done the same. The fact is that we are the liberal democrats and they are the strong men, but that is incidental to what is being done. We should also recall that Russia, Ukraine and other nations of the former Soviet Union do not enjoy the same advantages that we have enjoyed, so it is inherently unfair to judge them by the same yardstick.

We know that the Whig narrative of history is a myth. Anyone who believes the myth of progress after Auschwitz and Hiroshima must be wearing blinkers. Look at those photographs of modern free women studying in the universities of Tehran and Kabul in the 1960s and 1970s and then witness their condition, rights and appalling position today. Our rights and freedoms do not just arise out of the primordial fundamental; they are contingent on certain circumstances. We in Britain are not destined to be a parliamentary democracy with a prosperous economy; it has taken centuries of slow and gradual development with often quite arbitrary situations that has allowed our tradition of parliamentary democracy to emerge.

Seventy years of communism perverted the spirit of the people of the former Soviet Union and prevented them from developing the institutions, the habits and the traditions that we all too easily take for granted, whether here in the House or in the United Kingdom as a whole. It is precisely why we traditionalists and Conservatives have been so defensive and circumspect when it comes to altering the traditions of this House or the British constitution. To alter, change or abolish one portion thereof, no matter how small, may have numerous unintended and unforeseen consequences, with the potential to wreak havoc on the rights and freedoms that we have inherited from those who came before us.

Taking this into account, we must recognise how important it is to understand the Russian mentality. Russia suffered for decades under communist rule. Russia has experienced at first hand the future that we are marching towards and rejected it. We here all believe we are wonderful, enlightened, modern liberals, and of course we have totally and wholeheartedly rejected nationalism and all those other nasty things, but the Russians feel very keenly that they have been wronged. They were allowed to sit at the western table only when they were weak and ineffective under Yeltsin as their economy was plundered by criminal oligarchs.

Moscow has definite security concerns regarding NATO expansion in Ukraine. Likewise, I am sure we would have had definite security concerns had Ireland or Belgium considered joining the Warsaw pact. The US would have similar concerns if, for instance, Mexico had tried to join some Russian sphere of influence.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I want to back up my hon. Friend’s point. Twenty years ago, as the chief of policy at Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers Europe, I repeatedly sent in papers saying that the expansion of NATO eastwards was poking the Russians in the eye, when we consider their history. That is exactly what we have done.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

I agree.

Might it not be worth at least attempting to see things from the perspective of others and the perspective of most Russian people? Is it not wise to try to understand how we and our actions are perceived by them? How can we possibly make correct decisions about what to do if we have zero understanding of what makes other people tick? That is especially true if those people have extraordinarily different histories, not least the fact, as I said before, that Russian people suffered the most appalling tribulations as a result of invasion by the west within the lifetime of many Russian people.

[Sir Gerald Howarth]

I have some sympathy with my hon. Friend, but he is trying to paint Russia as a victim. What would he say about what Stalin did to the people of Ukraine? He starved them to death when that country was the bread basket of the Soviet Union. What about the Ukrainian people who have that deeply seared in their memory? Are they not victims too?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

Absolutely right. I agree entirely with that. I am not pro-Russian and anti-Ukrainian. I fully accept the appalling suffering of the Ukrainian people, particularly under Stalin, and the dreadful suffering that they experienced from the Nazi invasion. I am not making that point; I am simply trying to explain that the Russians have a point of view, and if we are to do the right thing, we must understand that. We may not agree with it. Nothing I say militates against a free, independent and prosperous Ukraine.

We have to wake up to the reality that many Russians think, act and feel differently from us, and that no amount of bullying on our part with sanctions will turn them into western liberals with our point of view. Not all Russians agree with what I am saying, but many do. Many take quite the opposite point of view from us. We in the west seem to have lost our critical faculty. We make the fatal error of believing our own propaganda and, worse, expecting other people to believe it too. None of us here believes Mr Putin’s propaganda. I do not support him or believe in him or defend him to the remotest degree, but why do we expect people in Russia, the Crimea or eastern Ukraine to believe our propaganda? They judge us not by our words but by our actions. Why should they do otherwise? Look at our immediate recognition of the seizure of power in Kiev this past February, which was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Maldon (Mr Whittingdale). I make no defence whatever of the previous corrupt Ukrainian regime, but we preach respect for the law then completely disregard the Ukrainian constitution, article 111 of which lays out specific provisions for the impeachment and replacement of the President of Ukraine. These provisions were not applied, thus a succession, in the view of many, is at best irregular, at worst unconstitutional.

Let us remember 1993 in Russia. Yeltsin unconstitutionally dissolved the Duma and sent in tanks against a democratically Parliament, and the west backed him. What may have been the beginnings of a Russian idea of parliamentary sovereignty and the accountability of the Executive were nipped in the bud, with western powers nodding approvingly. It is all very well to pronounce the sacred inviolability of the borders of sovereign states, but when one does so, having undermined the borders of sovereign states as we did in Serbia, which many Russians point to, when we went to war over Kosovo, whose independence we now recognise, in their view it begins to look hypocritical.

Russia, we know, is certainly involved in the supply of weapons to the rebels in eastern Ukraine, but in Kosovo NATO forces—this is often mentioned in Russia—effectively acted as the air force for the Kosovan Liberation Army. In the war against Serbia, NATO forces bombed hospitals—this is what many Russians say—bridges, journalists’ offices, public markets and even the Chinese embassy. Russia has done wrong, but it has not done what the Nazis did in Ukraine.

Economically speaking, we are continually arguing for globalisation, the integration of world economies, free trade, allowing everyone to grow in prosperity together—all things that I and everyone else speaking in this debate agree with. Why, then, are we allowing politics to interfere with our economic links to Russia, which are very strong, and to frustrate Russia’s further integration in the world economy? Those who seek to undermine Mr Putin would be much wiser to seek to strengthen these links, to incorporate Russia much more closely in the wider world. Surely that would strike more deeply at the heart of Mr Putin’s separatist way of doing things, drawing the Russian people in rather than casting them out. Instead, we are playing into Mr Putin’s hands. Our cack-handed sanctions allow him to portray us as anti-Russian, thus further legitimising his position as the defender of Mother Russia.

Global economic recovery, we know, is extraordinarily precarious. Provoking crises with Russia risks unsettling the recovery, not just that of Russia but ours. With all due respect to the Ukraine, for Britons is it worth this possibility? One need not add BP’s significant investment in Russia, the billions of pounds of Russian money involved in the City of London, and European reliance on Russian energy. We must always remember that the existential threat to us is global Islamic jihadism, and Russia is an absolute crucial ally in that. Why put that at risk? Particularly at this time of commemoration, when we are looking back to the events of a hundred years ago, we must force ourselves to learn the lessons of 1914. Does anyone really think that the assassination of the Austrian heir to the throne was worth the suicide of Europe? We do not want to sleepwalk into a war, the likes of which we cannot imagine.

Ukraine is a beautiful country. It has deep traditions, a proud culture, a long history. We should wish the Ukrainians all the best in their journey as an independent people, but it is obvious, I am afraid, that there is no intrinsic British interest in Ukraine. Ukrainian relations with Russia, Belarus, Poland and others are for Ukrainians to sort out, no matter how divided a people they are, and they are divided, but there is unequivocally no single shred of a reason why the United Kingdom should risk war over Ukraine. Our priority should be de-escalation, and then facilitating dialogue between the warring Ukrainian factions and between Ukraine, Russia and the west. We need to foster a breathing space in which Ukraine can make suitable constitutional reforms to allow for autonomy, as has been said. We should not put the global economy at risk, and we certainly should not risk a European war—1914 is ever present.

Perhaps I have been a bit too harsh on liberal democracy. Let me finish on a positive note. I am profoundly pro-life and anti-war. I want, if it is not too naive a thing to say, for Ukraine to be at peace. I really believe in this noble theme.

I believe that there is a role for Britain and France, in particular. We have no historical axe to grind. Unlike Poland and the Baltic states, we have not been invaded or suppressed by the Russians. As for the Russians, they still harbour some justifiable historical fear of German expansionism, and with some reason today in economic terms. Unlike some Americans currently in power, we also have a sense of history. We recall from Woodrow Wilson’s time that good intentions are not always enough and can lead to war. We know that western Ukraine around Lviv was never part of Russia; it was first part of Austria-Hungary and then Poland. We know that in western Ukraine they 100% want to be part of Europe. However, many of us are also sensibly sceptical about the expansion of NATO and the EU into former Russian lands.

I believe that a solution can be brokered, and I believe that we can play a role. We must convince Russia that we have no intention of trying to detach Ukraine from Russian influence to bring it under our own. We want Ukraine to be what it should be: free; independent; not part of the Russian sphere of influence or the NATO or EU sphere of influence; and with a strong federal structure and home rule for the east. Why should we want to break the Russian economy? Why should we want to destroy Mr Putin? If he goes, we could get somebody far worse. No feasible Russian leader would ever accept the permanent loss of eastern Ukraine. Let us be an honest broker. Let peace be our watchword, not war without end.

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[Dr Lewis]

Yes, in an ideal world it would be, but there is a slight problem with that scenario, namely that the Russians have the power to impose a solution and nobody else is willing to fight them to prevent them from doing so. That is the hard reality. We may not like the situation any more than we liked that in 1968 when Russia imposed its will with the crushing of the Prague spring; but I do not think anybody would suggest even now, with the benefit of hindsight, that it would have been right to provoke world war three at that time. In situations where we are up against people with a lot of power, we have to contain them until political affairs evolve gradually in the direction we want them to go.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

indicated assent.

[Dr Lewis]

I am glad that my hon. Friend agrees with me.

Let me deal with the other two scenarios before drawing my remarks to a conclusion. The third scenario is a split. It would be either a de facto split, which is being referred to as a frozen conflict—in other words, the pro-Russian communities would end up in control of their areas, glaring at Kiev and vice versa—or a de jure split, which would obviously be a less satisfactory solution than an agreed decision to stay together with an appropriate amount of autonomy.

Finally—this is the dread scenario, which really could happen—if we really were crazy enough to offer military assistance to Kiev and encourage it to think that there would be enough military supplies to enable it to overwhelm its adversaries in the pro-Russian parts of the country, it is an absolute certainty that Russia would respond militarily. In any conflict of that sort, Russia would prevail and it would not then be content to confine itself to the pro-Russian areas; it would invade and take over the whole country.

It is what is colloquially called a no-brainer that if the Russians are determined—however wrongly, as my hon. Friends have variously suggested—not to let the pro-Russian provinces go, and they are not prepared to do so, the best outcome we can hope for is an agreed negotiation of autonomy for those areas. Such agreements are not unprecedented. It took us 38 years to reach some sort of agreement even in a province such as Northern Ireland, which was a rather less fraught or challenging situation than the one that we and the international community face in Ukraine.