Ukraine

Debate between John Healey and Stephen Gethins

Wednesday 25th February 2026 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Defence (John Healey)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.

Yesterday marked a milestone that none of us wanted to see: four years of Putin’s war on Ukraine; four years of his brutal full-scale invasion of that sovereign nation, a proud country that has fought back against Putin’s attacks and—let us not forget—suffered 12 years under the pain of occupation. This week we stand with the families mourning loved ones, the troops fighting on the frontline and the millions displaced from home, yearning for the opportunity to return.

Four years ago today, a dozen Ukrainian border guards on Snake island—a tiny, isolated island in the middle of the Black sea—were surrounded by Russian sea and air forces. When the Russians radioed to demand their surrender, the Ukrainians told the ship’s command to get lost—in fact, they told them so in stronger terms that I cannot repeat in the House this afternoon. That defiance has driven Ukrainian resistance to Russia every day of the conflict since.

That defiance burned fiercely in Kyiv last month when I met emergency workers, military chiefs, Ukrainian Ministers and President Zelensky himself, because Ukrainians—civilians and military alike—are still fighting with the same courage and determination that inspired the world in February 2022.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

I am sorry that this intervention is so early, but I just wanted to reflect that I was in Kyiv at the same time as the Secretary of State, and I thank him for his visit. We were there at the same time to see the apartment block where emergency responders were hit with a double-tap strike—that is, they had gone to respond and to rescue those affected, and then they too were hit. The Secretary of State is aware of the desperate need for air defence missiles and the lack of Patriots going in. I know he will address this. Can he say whether that is being raised with the utmost urgency? We need to defend Ukraine’s skies.

[John Healey]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his visit to Kyiv. The fact that Members across the House have been regularly to Ukraine lifts the morale of the Ukrainian people and reminds them that the UK stands with them as strongly now as four years ago.

The hon. Gentleman is right. The night before I arrived in Kyiv, 90 Shahed drones had hit the city, 21 of which had been targeted directly at residential accommodation. The block that he and I both visited, which had had its side ripped open by one of the drone strikes, had been hit twice, an hour and a half apart, deliberately, so that the emergency workers who had gone in to help those suffering after the first strike were then hit and, in one case, killed by the second. This is an indication of cynical and illegal tactics and the war crimes that Putin is committing in Ukraine. It reminds us that we must redouble our determination to stand with Ukraine for as long as it takes.

I will move on to the question of air defence later, but the hon. Member for Arbroath and Broughty Ferry (Stephen Gethins) is quite right: he and I were both told, when out in Kyiv last month, that it is President Zelenksy’s first priority. As the hon. Gentleman will have seen, when I chaired the Ukraine Defence Contact Group at NATO headquarters two weeks ago, I announced that Britain was committing an extra £500 million package of air defence systems and missiles in order to meet the urgent need that he and I both saw that day.

President Putin postures as a strongman. He wants the world to believe that Russia has unstoppable momentum on the battlefield, that the Ukrainians have no choice but to concede on his terms, and that we, as Ukraine’s western allies, have grown weary. But he is wrong, wrong, wrong. This was a war that Putin thought he would win in a week, but four years on, he has achieved none of his strategic aims. Instead, he has inflicted terrible suffering on his own people, as well as Ukraine’s. He is failing.

Of course, Ukrainian troops are certainly under pressure on the frontline, but Russia has now been fighting in Ukraine for longer than the Soviet Union fought Germany during the second world war, its forces are advancing more slowly than those in the battle of the Somme, and nearly one and a quarter million Russians have been injured or killed. The average casualty rate for Russian troops is now 1,000 each day, every day, and the average life expectancy of a conscript deployed to the Russian frontline is now less than five days.

Putin is desperate to avoid a second Russian mobilisation, and because of that he is turning to more desperate measures to plug the gaps. He is increasingly heavily reliant on foreign fighters. He has already called on 17,000 North Koreans, who are fighting for him on his frontline, and he is now preying on thousands of men from Latin America, central Asia and Africa, sending them to their deaths on his frontline.

But Putin’s war machine continues to be degraded, and his war economy continues to be damaged. In Russia, 40% of Government spending now goes on the military. Manufacturing is falling at its fastest rate, oil revenues are plunging and food prices are soaring. Make no mistake: Putin is under pressure. He targets Ukrainian cities, civilians and energy supplies and, during the coldest winter for a decade, he has killed Ukrainian children in their beds, destroyed hospital wards and plunged entire cities into darkness.

For 2026, the Government’s mission—Britain’s mission—for Ukraine is simple: support the fight today, secure the peace tomorrow, and step up the pressure on Putin.

Ukraine

Debate between John Healey and Stephen Gethins

Monday 1st September 2025 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the campaigning that she is doing, and not just on Ukraine generally but, in particular, to draw attention to the systematic programme that we have seen from Putin and his troops in abducting Ukrainian children and trying to indoctrinate them into the Russian way of life. I have had discussions with Secretary Umerov, when he was Defence Minister and now when he is Secretary of the Ukrainian National Security and Defence Council. He is leading the negotiations on behalf of President Zelensky, and some of the early discussions potentially with the Russian side are about prisoner of war swaps and about the return of those Ukrainian children.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

I welcome the Norwegian investment in Glasgow’s shipyards. The Norwegians understand the importance of European security. The Norwegians understand the importance of territorial integrity. The Norwegians understand the importance of the high north. I pay credit to those at RM Condor, in my constituency, for their work in that particular area. They know that Donetsk is Ukrainian, that Luhansk is Ukrainian, and that Crimea is Ukrainian.

The United States ambassador to NATO said recently that no “chunks” that had not been “earned on the battlefield” should be given over to Russia. When the Secretary of State meets his US counterpart in a couple of weeks, will he make it clear that no chunks of Ukraine are earned by aggressors on the battlefield, and that Ukraine’s territorial integrity is testament regardless of our political allegiance here?

[John Healey]

The Ukrainians are fighting for their territorial integrity. The Ukrainians are doing the fighting, and it is for the Ukrainians to decide when to stop fighting and the terms on which they do so. Our job in the UK, and my job as Defence Secretary, is to ensure that we give them the maximum support possible in the fight, and we will give the maximum support possible as they go into the negotiations. Let me add that the hon. Gentleman’s declaration—and I hope he can speak on behalf of his party—that he fully supports that biggest ever British warship export deal is welcome in the House.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between John Healey and Stephen Gethins

Monday 14th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[John Healey]

The hon. Gentleman is right on both counts. First, the defence of the UK and the rest of Europe starts in Ukraine, and it is essential that we stand with Ukraine and support it for as long as it takes. Secondly, as he says—this is a matter that the Prime Minister and I discussed with the new Secretary-General of NATO, Mark Rutte, last week when he was in London—the allies together must do more to support Ukraine now, and to produce what it needs in the future. The new Secretary-General will make that one of his priorities.

[Stephen Gethins (Arbroath and Broughty Ferry) (SNP)]

Thank you for your kind comments about our late right hon. friend Alex Salmond, Mr Speaker.

I thank the Secretary of State for his contribution. He will be aware of the failures of analysis at the start of the full-scale invasion. Will he consider the report by Phillips O’Brien and Eliot Cohen of the Centre for Strategic and International Studies that looked at some of those failures, so that he is informed for the next process, in terms of support for Ukraine and building support internationally?

[John Healey]

I will indeed. If the hon. Gentleman could be so kind as to send me the executive summary, rather than the full report, I will certainly take a look at it.