James Cleverly
Main Page: James Cleverly (Conservative - Braintree)
The Minister for Europe and North America (James Cleverly)
I beg to move,
That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.
Seven days ago, President Zelensky inspired us with his address to Parliament. This weekend, he was visiting wounded soldiers in hospital, leading from the front. We owe it to President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine to do our utmost to help them in their brave fight; we owe it to ourselves to stand up for security and stability in Europe; and we owe it to the world to keep the flame of freedom burning and to show that aggression does not pay.
In response to the unprovoked attack, the world has shown immense unity in standing up to Vladimir Putin, but we need to keep up the pressure. Our objective is clear: Putin must lose in Ukraine. We are doing this by cutting off the funding for his war machine, by providing weapons that the Ukrainians need to defend themselves and by isolating Putin on the world stage. The United Kingdom has been at the forefront of the international response, with a tough sanctions package and strong support, including defensive weapons and humanitarian aid. We will now enhance our work with allies to respond to Russia’s aggression.
We need to be strong to get peace. That is why we are building on efforts to cut off the funding for Putin’s war machine through sanctions. Today, I can announce that we will go further than ever before by hitting more than 360 more people complicit with Putin’s regime. They range from former President Dmitry Medvedev and Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu to Putin’s propagandist Maria Zakharova. After today, we will have designated more than 1,000 individuals and entities under our Russian sanctions regime.
We are using our new powers under the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 to maximise impact. That would not have been possible without the extraordinary efforts of colleagues across this Parliament to get the legislation through the House so quickly, which shows our collective determination to lead by example in punishing the Putin regime.
Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)
The Minister is right that we are sanctioning a lot of people, but actually we name the people who are sanctioned, and then other people do the sanctioning by not engaging with them on a financial basis, not buying or selling properties and all the rest of it. At the moment, it is phenomenally difficult to find out from the Foreign Office sanctions list who is and is not sanctioned. For instance, I gather that it was announced last week that Members of the Duma were sanctioned, but they are still not on the Foreign Office website list, as far as I can see. I wonder whether there is a way of making the information far more readily available to the wider population.
We need to deal not just with the people who have £20 million houses, whom we have all heard of, but with the people who have £750,000 flats in London, bought with Russian dirty money—the many relatives of Abramovich and his ex-partners, for instance. Each one of them needs to be dealt with, and each one of those properties needs to be seized.
James Cleverly
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about ensuring that we give due publicity to the people, institutions and entities who have been sanctioned. I will ensure that the Department listens to his suggestion.
In December, we brought our G7 partners together in Liverpool to warn Putin that invading Ukraine would have massive consequences. We have followed through on that pledge. We have worked with our allies to cut off sectors of the Russian economy by targeting its defence companies, trade and transport sector, and by kicking banks out of the SWIFT financial system. We have led the way with our financial sanctions, targeting 10 Russian banks, and we have hit over £300 billion of Russian bank assets. All this amounts to the toughest sanctions package of any country. We will work with all our allies and encourage them to keep ratcheting up their efforts as well.
We will continue to provide lethal military aid to Ukraine. We were the first European country to send defensive weapons; we have already donated more than 3,600 next generation light anti-tank weapons and are now supplying Javelin missiles.
James Gray (North Wiltshire) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the lighter moments in an otherwise extremely bleak military picture in Ukraine was the destruction of Russian tanks, using—one has to presume—British NLAW missiles?
James Cleverly
My hon. and gallant Friend makes an important point. We have heard anecdotally that Ukrainians are shouting “God save the Queen!” as they fire those weapons at the tanks that have been sent to destroy them. I am very proud that we play an incredibly important part.
Jamie Stone (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross) (LD)
I thank the Minister for giving way; it is very courteous of him. Is it not true that part of the reason we are where we are today is the historic long-term running down of our armed forces? The situation today sits very ill with the proposal to reduce the British Army by 10,000 men and women. Finally, we have all read in today’s Telegraph that inflation will reduce the size of the armed forces over the years ahead.
James Cleverly
The sad truth, I think, is that Vladimir Putin has been plotting this expansionist idea of his for quite some time. I do not agree that it is necessarily linked with domestic defence policy in the UK, but we can absolutely be proud that British military technology, assisted by British military training, is helping the Ukrainians in their time of need and in their ferocious defence of their homeland.
Daniel Kawczynski (Shrewsbury and Atcham) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has told us that the United Kingdom has taken the lead on our continent in freezing the assets of Russians. During his discussions with representatives of the European Union, have they been able to furnish him with an explanation of why they, as an entity, have failed to keep pace with Britain in that regard?
James Cleverly
I am often encouraged to do a “compare and contrast” between the United Kingdom and our international friends and partners, but the simple truth is that there has been greater, tighter and closer co-ordination in response to Putin’s aggression in Ukraine than I could ever have imagined, and we will continue to work together extremely closely. We are proud of the fact that the UK Government have had a dramatic and detrimental impact on Russia’s finances, choking off Putin’s ability to fund this aggression, but we intend to go further, and we will do so in close co-ordination with those international friends and partners.
Clive Lewis (Norwich South) (Lab)
As someone who lost his guts, or at least his lunch, quite a few times when helicopters were having to jig because of the threat of Singer missiles—given to our allies at the time, decades earlier—may I ask whether the Minister can assure us that the Government’s measures are sufficient to ensure that our weapons do not end up on the black market in the hands of the wrong people at a future date? Will he also confirm that our weapons—the NLAWs and other pieces of aggressive equipment—will not end up in the hands of far-right neo-Nazis, many of whom we know to be making their way to Ukraine now from around the world?
James Cleverly
Our priority, and the purpose of the defensive weapon support that we have provided, is to help the Ukrainians to defend themselves against the attacks of Russia. Obviously we hope that this conflict will come to a swift conclusion, but until then we will continue our support for the Ukrainians as they defend themselves. What happens at the end of this conflict, in terms of securing munitions, will be something on which we will work with the Ukraine Government and our national friends and partners, but at the moment our priority, quite rightly, is to help the Ukrainians to defend themselves against Putin’s attack.
Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)
May I ask my right hon. Friend about this distinction between defensive and offensive weaponry? The fact is that when a friendly nation finds itself under attack, all the weaponry with which we supply it is defensive. I should have thought that if we cannot intervene ourselves—and there are good reasons why we cannot—there is no reason at all why we cannot help the Ukrainians with their airspace problem by facilitating the necessary aircraft deliveries which they have requested.
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend has made an important point about munitions systems being inherently defensive when a country is under attack. He has also made an important point about airspace management, and I will come to that later in my speech. I intend to make some progress now.
Since 2014, we have worked to train more than 22,000 Ukrainian troops under Operation Orbital. As well as helping Ukraine to defend itself from attack on the ground, we must help it to defend itself against attack from the skies. That is why we will be sending more supplies, including Starstreak ground-based air defence anti-aircraft missiles. We and our allies need to do everything possible, within the UN charter on self-defence, to help Ukraine to defend itself, which is why I was with my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister this morning discussing with and working with our Nordic and Baltic allies to increase defensive support as part of the UK-led joint expeditionary force. We must be robust in supporting our NATO allies living under the shadow of Russian aggression, so the UK, as NATO’s biggest European contributor, is doubling the number of troops in Estonia and Poland.
As Putin inflicts ever greater misery in Ukraine, we continue our humanitarian and economic support. We have pledged almost £400 million, which includes the supply of more than 700,000 medical items directly to Ukraine and more than 500 power generators to keep essential facilities such as hospitals running. We have also brought 21 critically ill Ukrainian children to the UK to receive life-saving cancer treatment. We are providing more humanitarian aid than any other European country. The British people have also risen to the moment by showing their own huge generosity of spirit. In the short time since our homes for Ukraine scheme was launched, more than 80,000 people have signed up for it.
Alec Shelbrooke (Elmet and Rothwell) (Con)
It may be helpful for my right hon. Friend to know that according to a Sky newsflash, the figure is now more than 100,000.
James Cleverly
That is lovely. It is not usually nice to be wrong at the Dispatch Box, but I am incredibly proud that the figure I quoted, which was accurate a few hours ago when this speech was written, has now been made obsolete by the enormous generosity of spirit of the British people. I think that that shows us at our best. The Disasters Emergency Committee’s appeal has now reached over £150 million, which we are supporting with our largest ever match-funding pledge of £25 million.
Wera Hobhouse (Bath) (LD)
I do not doubt the generosity of the people of this country, but I am still worried about the generosity of the Government. May I give the Minister an example? A young Ukrainian family, related to one of my constituents, have thankfully made it into Poland, but although their visa appointment was over a week ago, they are still waiting for the outcome. Meanwhile, their hotel bills are rising and they are even considering returning to Ukraine—to a war zone. How humane is that response from the Government? Can they not make these decisions much more quickly?
James Cleverly
The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and other members of the Government have made it clear that our intention is to be generous and to welcome Ukrainians with open arms. We are trying to facilitate that as quickly as possible, and the Home Secretary has spoken at the Dispatch Box about measures that she has put in place for that purpose. If the hon. Lady will pass on the details of the people whom she has mentioned, we will see what we can do to help, but I assure her that the generosity of spirit of this country will be felt by the Ukrainians who are fleeing persecution and attack from Vladimir Putin.
As well as supporting Ukraine directly, we are deploying our diplomatic efforts internationally. We are rallying the 141 countries that voted to condemn Russia’s actions at the United Nations to do even more. We have seen many of those countries support our sanctions worldwide, from Switzerland to Singapore, and we are working to draw more countries into the orbit of those that are prepared to stand up for the sovereignty of Ukraine. We are working with partners to reduce the economic dependency on Russia across the world, from the Indo-Pacific to Africa and the Gulf, through trade and British international investment. Everything we do will further isolate the Putin regime which has made Russia a global pariah.
Ultimately, we will hold Putin accountable for his crimes. We will work with prosecutors at the International Criminal Court to help them to obtain the information that they need, and we will not relent in our mission to see that justice is done.
Sir Bernard Jenkin (Harwich and North Essex) (Con)
Has my right hon. Friend seen the recent reports that the Russian navy is now massing off Odesa in a typical Russian tactical manoeuvre to open a new front? Is this not in fact a new opportunity to demonstrate to the world the unacceptability of Putin’s disgusting war and to invite open and international condemnation of his actions?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We need to continue working internationally to enhance the coalition of nations that have denounced Putin’s actions and to increase the pressure on him to bring this war to a conclusion rather than opening up another front and increasing the suffering of the people in Ukraine.
We must be realistic that there will be a cost to the UK and to our allies of imposing these tough sanctions, but the cost of doing nothing is so much higher. We saw what happened in 2014 when the free world did not do enough to contain Putin’s aggression. He came back more aggressively, and that is why we cannot allow him to impose a settlement on Ukraine that vindicates his aggression. If we fail to stand up to Putin and fail to support Ukraine in its hour of need, we will live to regret it.
Simon Hoare (North Dorset) (Con)
We know what a successful sanctions regime will look like: withdrawal, peace restored, etc. Who will determine—and when—whether the sanctions policy has worked, and what is the next step thereafter?
James Cleverly
My hon. Friend is right to draw our attention to that. The simple truth is that the sanctions have to be successful and we have to keep applying the pressure until they are successful.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
On that point, as we mount up the sanctions, we will be freezing more and more oligarchs’ and Russian assets, but we will not be selling them. We are not sequestrating them, so we are going to end up with a pile of assets. Are we at some point going to use those assets for the benefit of the Ukrainian people, or are we just going to wait until the war is over and hand them back, which I do not think would be as popular?
James Cleverly
Ultimately, what we are looking to do with these sanctions is choke off the supply of funds for Putin’s war machine. We have to be very focused on what the sanctions are for. This is about bringing this conflict to a conclusion.
Mr Khalid Mahmood (Birmingham, Perry Barr) (Lab)
Just a single point on sanctions: what action will we take when people break those sanctions on Russia and take supplies? I am thinking particularly of the crude oil being taken by India. What action should we take in those circumstances against people who are still supporting Putin, with his money flowing into the country?
James Cleverly
Ultimately, the enforcement of our sanctions regime is a task for Her Majesty’s Treasury. We will of course work across Government and internationally to ensure that the sanctions packages are robust and have the desired effect of ending this war in Ukraine. That is why the UK is working so hard and that is why, together with our allies and partners, we will ensure that Putin loses in Ukraine.
Richard Graham (Gloucester) (Con)
Will one of the Ministers on the Front Bench help us here? My clear understanding was that Ukrainian refugees who come here will all be able to work immediately, will all be able to claim benefits immediately, will be able to have complete access to NHS services, and will all be able to get education. There is probably more to it. Would someone from the Front Bench nod, because it is really important that all our constituents understand that this is an incredibly generous package of help for people who badly deserve it?
Carol Monaghan
If Ukrainian refugees have access to all those services, that is great—but those services cost money, so local authorities must be supported with the finances to provide that.
I have a list of asks. The right hon. Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) spoke about trafficking, which has not been talked about enough. We know where the main exit points are from Ukraine. We need to be in there, working with organisations on the ground such as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the Red Cross, to take people directly from those crossing points. There should be no opportunity, or at least we should minimise any opportunity, for traffickers to gain access to those who are already incredibly vulnerable. We need to transport people directly from there. It should not be a case of their having to get to Calais or anywhere else.
I ask the Government to work directly with devolved Governments to identify both capacity for supporting refugees and gaps in services. I have talked already about trauma counselling. We need to know how we are going to support properly those coming here. For example, the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) mentioned the ability to work. We must look at fast-tracking professional qualifications so that doctors and teachers can come in and work, and use the qualifications they have. In the case of teachers, in many instances they will be able to help Ukrainian children who are coming in and need language support.
Finally, we must look at examples of what other countries are doing. Let us look at what Ireland has done, for example: first, it has got people in quickly, but it has also looked at how it can utilise the skills that are coming into the country and how it can integrate people. We need to look at the best practice being displayed in other countries, rather than—as was reported—criticising their response. History will judge us on how we respond. We are three weeks in; it should not be another three weeks before we see anything.
Clive Lewis
I take that back—I have the hon. Member confused with someone else, but don’t worry about that. He does not have a Caribbean home, and that is fine, but one of his colleagues does and he spent a vast deal of time during lockdown defending the interests of oligarchs in this country. We will move on. [Interruption.] The Minister is chuntering from a seated position—would he like to make a point?
Clive Lewis
No? Thank you. Good. [Interruption.] You can bury your gold in there. Let us move on.
John Healey (Wentworth and Dearne) (Lab)
A week ago, this House stood as one to salute President Zelensky, who told us:
“We will not give up and we will not lose.”
His address, like his leadership, was deeply moving and deeply inspiring. Our Parliament, that day, truly spoke for the British people. The House has done so again today, with 26 speakers making a wide range of points. But at the heart of what every speaker has said is that we in this House, and in this country, are unified in our solidarity with Ukraine and in our condemnation of President Putin’s invasion.
The Ukrainians are showing massive bravery—military and civilians alike. We must do all we can to support their resistance, and the Government have Labour’s full backing for military and intelligence assistance to Ukraine to defend itself. We welcomed the delivery of more than 3,600 NLAW anti-tank weapons. I hope that the Minister this afternoon will be able to confirm that the Starstreak missiles that the Ukrainians need to defend against Russian air attacks are also now being delivered.
It is clear that President Putin miscalculated on the resolve of the Ukrainian military and on the strength of his own Russian forces. Three weeks in, his forces are still only making limited progress. They have still only taken three cities, all in southern Ukraine. However, Russia has such crushing firepower and Putin has such utter ruthlessness that we must expect more of their military objectives to be taken in the weeks to come. Whatever the short-term gains Putin may secure, we must ensure that he fails in the long run through Ukrainian resistance, tougher sanctions, more humanitarian help, wider international isolation, justice for war crimes being committed and, above all, long-term western unity and NATO unity.
More immediately, I fear that we must expect further escalation in Kremlin rhetoric and in the merciless attacks on civilians, yet these are the very tactics that are hardening resistance in Ukraine, and leading to protests in Russia and unified opposition in the wider world. Putin will have to negotiate, perhaps from a position of weakness, rather than strength, but certainly we must make that happen sooner, rather than later. All diplomatic efforts are needed to secure a ceasefire, negotiations and a full Russian withdrawal.
When Britain was one of the original guarantors, alongside Russia and the US, of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in the 1994 Budapest agreement, it is deeply disappointing that today our British Prime Minister is playing a bit part on the margins of international diplomacy as France, Germany and the US—not Britain—lead the way.
John Healey
The Minister shakes his head, but let me ask about China. China called yesterday for maximum restraint in Ukraine. Has the Prime Minister spoken to President Xi since the conflict began? When did the Foreign Secretary last speak to her Chinese counterpart? Was that since or before the invasion?
I turn to the contributions from many Members, which I think were in four sections and had four hallmarks. The first was great insight and expertise, and I will only recognise those Members who have returned to the Chamber for the wind-ups.
James Cleverly
With the leave of the House, I would like to conclude this debate on behalf of my hon. and gallant Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces, who was unfortunately detained in his Department at the opening of this debate. He has apologised to the Chair, and he has asked me to put on record his apologies to the House.
Earlier I outlined the Government’s main objective in this conflict, which is for President Putin to fail in Ukraine, and I set out the means we are employing to ensure that this is the case. With the addition of 360 people sanctioned today, the United Kingdom has now taken action against over 1,000 Russian individuals and entities. The new powers afforded to the Government under the Economic Crime (Transparency and Enforcement) Act 2022 have been put to use and will continue to be used over the coming weeks and months. Bank assets worth over £350 billion have been frozen. We have cut off key sectors of the Russian economy, including those essential to the Russian war machine, and we have rallied allies to remove Russia from the SWIFT banking system.
These sanctions are already biting. The Russian stock market has not opened since the start of the conflict, which I understand is the most prolonged closure of the Russian stock market since the Bolshevik revolution. The Kremlin is desperately trying to hold back capital flight, even from its sovereign wealth fund. Putin’s economy is now desperately exposed, and the elites around him feel the pain. They must tell him to stop the war, because the international consensus that now threatens their wealth will not be broken. This conflict stops when Putin decides it stops, and he should realise that it should stop now.
The international community has also moved to ostracise Russia from international sporting and cultural events. Russian and Belarusian athletes have been blocked from the Paralympics, and they are out of the World cup. Major western corporations are ceasing business in Russia, and the Bolshoi ballet will not be coming on its planned tour of the UK. Russian sports fans are left without international games to watch. The artists, athletes and performers blocked from performing overseas and the hundreds of people queuing in recent days for their last McDonald’s must be dismal signals to all Russians that Putin is damaging their country.
In his desperate attempts to control the news, Putin has inflicted on his own people the blocking of western social media platforms, and the highly connected and often influential Russian influencers must be devastated. As trivial as their tears may seem in the face of the suffering in Sumy or Kharkiv, their tears reflect the anger of a generation of young Russian people whom Putin does not understand and does not represent. They do not want the digital and cultural isolation from the west that he is now inflicting on them, and they should follow the brave example of Marina Ovsyannikova in challenging the repression of free speech and access to the world of online information. Putin is inflicting on this generation of millennial Russians a complete and total change of their way of life, and I have no doubt that they will want to push back.
Chris Bryant
I am full of praise for the Government for now being able to sanction 1,000 individuals, but will the Minister confirm two things? First, can he confirm that a large number of them can be sanctioned for only 56 days under our rules, because it depends on the Act that we passed yesterday? Secondly, can he confirm that we will proceed with many more sanctions? The tiny number of people around Putin may not be moved by all of this, but the people who have £750,000 tucked away here as their possible bolthole are terrified of what may happen, and we need to get to them as well.
James Cleverly
I can assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that we will continue applying sanctions to the Russians to continue the pressure on Vladimir Putin and to choke off the supply of money to his war machine.
The Government have announced nearly £400 million in both humanitarian and economic support to Ukraine. We are providing medical supplies, generators and other essentials. We are bringing Ukrainian children to the UK to continue their cancer treatment, and we have made the offer that the Royal Centre for Defence Medicine and other UK military medical facilities will be made available to injured Ukrainian service personnel. We will also welcome here Ukrainians fleeing from the conflict. We have put no cap on that number, and we have already seen that over 100,000 British families have offered to make their homes available to the refugees.
Sir Bernard Jenkin
I appreciate that there might be difficulties with this, but would the Minister consider whether our offer should be open to injured Russian military personnel as well? If they are captured on the battlefield and they are injured, we should show them the humanity that we are obliged to under the Geneva conventions.
James Cleverly
I will listen to what my hon. Friend has said. As with all military conflict this is based on medical need, but I will take the point he has made.
I feel that a number of Labour Members sought to create a grievance where I do not think there should be one. It is important that people recognise that the £350 some hon. Members have mentioned will go to the householder, but more than £10,000 of support will be made available to local councils for those being homed in the UK. My right hon. Friend the Member for Maidenhead (Mrs May) made an incredibly important point—I am glad it was recognised by those on the shadow Front Bench—about the risk of people traffickers taking advantage of those who have been displaced by this conflict. We know that bad people take advantage of good people in times of difficulty, and that is why it is so important that we remain observant and vigilant, and that we prevent those evil people from prospering through the hurt of others.
The shadow Secretary of State for Defence was assiduous in reflecting the comments made to the House today, and rather than repeat the names of the right hon. and hon. Members he mentioned, I wish to put on record my thanks for their contributions. We heard from Opposition Members a commitment to the territorial integrity of Ukraine, and a commitment to collective defence. It is great, once again, to see Her Majesty’s Opposition being the true heirs of Attlee. It is incredibly important that at times such as this, although we may have differences, which have been aired today, the message sent out to our friends and adversaries alike is that we stand united as a House, and we stand in solidarity with the Ukrainian people.
We recognise that Ukrainians do not want to be refugees. They want to get home and back to the country that they love and are defending with such passion. We are keen to help them do so, which is why we will continue to provide the military aid they need. At the international donor conference, chaired by my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary two weeks ago, there was a commitment of 4,241 next-generation light anti-tank weapons—NLAWS—which have been delivered. Other countries will also make donations. Thousands of sets of body armour and helmets, and a huge volume of small arms ammunition, rations, and communications equipment have been flown forward and moved onwards into Ukraine.
The shadow Secretary of State asked specifically about the provision of Starstreak high velocity anti-aircraft missiles. Those are being delivered, but he will understand that we wish to keep the timing, location and nature of that discreet. I assure him that we will help the Ukrainians to defend themselves against attacks from the air. The donor community grows because of the intervention of the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary, and others.
Bob Stewart
May I press the Minister on MiG-29s, and trying to get them to Ukraine? They could be picked up by Ukrainian pilots and flown in.
James Cleverly
My right hon. Friend is running ahead—he can clearly see the next page of my speech.
Through the work of the Prime Minister, the Defence Secretary and others, the donor community grows all the time, and a further donor conference will be convened by the Defence Secretary in the near future. We will push for more, just as the Prime Minister did with member states of the joint expeditionary force, a meeting of which he hosted this morning at Lancaster House. Countries that have not had appropriate weapons in their stockpiles have sent cash; others have provided transport planes to work alongside the RAF in making deliveries. All of that is co-ordinated thorough the fantastic work of the international donor co-ordination centre led by the UK’s 104 Theatre Sustainment Brigade, who are now established in Stuttgart alongside the US European Command.
Many colleagues on both sides of the House asked for more support for the Ukrainian armed forces and for more complex weapons to be made available. We speak regularly—every day—with our friends in Ukraine and are working day and night to deliver on the requests that they make of us. My right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) asked in particular, as others have done, about the delivery of MiG-29s from Poland and other western countries who operate those jets. The delivery of those jets to Ukraine is a matter for those donor countries, each of which will need to make its calculations about the risk of donating weapons, as we do when we donate ours. Whatever they decide to do, we will of course support them.
Many colleagues also focused on the work of our armed forces. Yes, I am biased, but we know, because the Ukrainians tell us, that both the equipment and training support that the UK armed forces have provided them over a number of years through Operation Orbital has been incredibly useful to them. We should all be proud of our armed forces personnel’s work in support of the Ukrainians. The Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary, the Defence Secretary and others are all determined that the UK’s foreign and security policy reflects the threat that we face in the world today and that we have the opportunity to project UK influence. Despite the Opposition’s habitual narrative—I understand that Oppositions have to oppose—I assure the House that the UK is still a significant influencer on the world stage and a force for good in the world.
We are determined to support the Ukrainians. A number of right hon. and hon. Members spoke passionately—they were right to do so—about the bravery and resilience of the Ukrainians that we have seen, both in the military and civilians who have taken up arms in defence of their homeland. We are also witnessing incredible bravery from protestors in Russia. That brave resistance to Putin and the elites around him inspires us all. The UK and the world stand with Ukraine.
But for all the hubris in Putin’s planning, for all the incompetence in the execution and for all the lies told about the losses suffered, the Russian army remains a formidable foe. We must therefore recognise and, I am afraid, prepare ourselves for the potential of worse than what we have already seen. But the Ukrainian people must not give up hope. They are fighting heroically and holding back an invading armoured army.
Putin may feel that he has overwhelming power at his disposal, and he may feel that a decisive victory is still in his gift, but the Ukrainians are proving him wrong. He has already failed in his strategic objective. The international community has pulled together. The Ukrainians have pulled together and have fought like tigers. The international community and the Ukrainian people have seen him for what he is, and increasingly the Russian people are seeing it, too.
Question put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.