Ukraine (UK Relations with Russia)

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered Ukraine and UK relations with Russia.

May I start by thanking the Backbench Business Committee for agreeing to hold this debate this afternoon? I also thank my right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe, who changed his diary so that he could respond to the debate.

Some might think that events in Ukraine have calmed down and that there is no longer the same conflict raging as a few weeks ago, as there is not nearly as much coverage of it in our own media. It has been superseded by events in the middle east and the threat from Ebola in west Africa, but the truth is that the situation in Ukraine is no better. It dominated a large part of the recent discussion at the G20, and the war, which has now been raging for several months, has led to more and more people being killed every day. Therefore, it is absolutely right that this House should debate the events in Ukraine and their consequences for our own relations with Russia.

I should perhaps start by referring to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I chair the all-party British-Ukraine group and I have received support from the British Ukrainian Society in that capacity.

It is difficult to believe that it was only a year ago that we saw the start of what has become known as the revolution of dignity. On 21 November 2013, after many months of negotiation on Ukraine signing the European Union association agreement, it was announced that it would not actually happen. That is what proved to be the catalyst for the protests, which became known as Euromaidan. The protests may have been sparked by that announcement, but they were not actually about the EU as such; they were, I think, much more about the overwhelming feeling of the people that they could no longer tolerate a corrupt and discredited Government who had sent a clear signal that, instead of moving closer to western values and the freedoms we uphold, they were turning in the opposite direction and moving closer to Russia.

Over the next few days, the numbers grew, and on 8 December—its anniversary was only a few days ago— 1 million people came out across Ukraine in the march of the million. They converged in Independence square in particular, and the Lenin monument was toppled. Today is the first anniversary of when the Berkut riot police first tried to attack the Maidan and the Ukrainian people came out in the middle of the night to resist the attack and defend the protesters.

It had been a peaceful protest by hundreds of thousands of people, but during the following weeks the protesters suffered beatings, disappearances and shootings. I want to take this opportunity once again to pay tribute to those who are now called the Heavenly Hundred, the activists who died in January and February in the Maidan. Like the Minister, I had a meeting yesterday with Vitali Klitschko, who is now the mayor of Kiev. He talked about the crimes committed against those people in Kiev and the fact that they still have not received any justice: nobody has been arrested for or convicted of those crimes. There is no question but that the people of Ukraine still want justice, and they look to their new Government to try to obtain it. I hope that they will concentrate on that, because the crimes that took place there were too great for no one to be held responsible for them.

Following the Euromaidan protest, events deteriorated. First, there was the Russian intervention in Crimea. The Russians already had a military presence at the naval base in Crimea, but there was then the illegal occupation and annexation of the entire Crimea. That was followed by the so-called referendum, which upheld no democratic standards whatever and was entirely bogus.

Since then, the situation in Crimea has got worse. We know that large-scale violations of human rights are taking place there. Both pro-Ukrainian activists and particularly Crimean Tatar activists have been persecuted, and a large number of them have disappeared. At the same time, there has been a large increase in the Russian military presence. We understand that some 50,000 Russian troops have moved into Crimea, with Iskander tactical missiles that can carry nuclear warheads and can reach Romania and Hungary.

The completely unacceptable situation in Crimea led to the first imposition of sanctions. Since then, attention has obviously focused on what is happening in eastern Ukraine.

[Chris Bryant (Rhondda) (Lab)]

I am terribly sorry not to have been in the Chamber for the beginning of the hon. Gentleman’s speech, but I will have an opportunity to read it tomorrow.

One of the most remarkable things during the past year, as the hon. Gentleman will know, was when President Putin said that, for Russians, Crimea was as sacred as the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. Does that not show that there is certainly a tinge of madness in what is going on in the Kremlin?

[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.

[John Woodcock (Barrow and Furness) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this debate. On his latter point, does he agree that the worst thing we in the UK could do would be to use that argument, or say, “Well, we’ve provoked Russia by talking about expanding the EU, and we have taken NATO up to its borders”? That would in some way excuse Russia’s actions and promote the myth—which emanates from the Kremlin—that the situation is somehow our fault rather than squarely down to Russia’s completely unacceptable aggression.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I will say a little more along those lines, but I very much agree with the hon. Gentleman. The idea that what has happened has been somehow at the instigation of the west and America ignores the fact that the people of Ukraine have the right to choose their future. They have overwhelmingly demonstrated—most recently in parliamentary elections, which I want to speak a little about—that they see their future as moving closer to the west and to Europe, and they do not wish to move away from that and back in the direction of Russia. We must respect their right to make that choice.

At the moment, the greatest violence is taking place in eastern Ukraine, and a war is going on in what is known as the Donbas region. There are violations of the Minsk accords every day. Civilian areas are being shelled, there are shootings, and an extremely fierce battle has been raging over several days and weeks for Donetsk airport, where despite the Russians deploying some of their best troops—the Spetsnaz—we understand that they have suffered heavier casualties and the Ukrainians have managed to repel them.

We are told by the Russians that there are no Russian troops in that part of Ukraine, but we know that there are regular movements of military vehicles across the border, and we understand that anything up to 10,000 regular Russian troops are in eastern Ukraine, not to mention the tens of thousands lined up along the border. So-called humanitarian convoys regularly cross into eastern Ukraine. The Red Cross or international observers have not been permitted to inspect those humanitarian white lorries, and local reports state that the most recent humanitarian convoys have contained ammunition.

The battle is fierce and has resulted in heavy casualties. In the summer a strong tank battle resulted in something like 70% of Ukrainian armour being destroyed by Russian forces. President Poroshenko has said that at the latest count, 1,250 Ukrainian servicemen have been killed and 3,000 injured, but casualties have not been only on the Ukrainian side.

[Dr Julian Lewis (New Forest East) (Con)]

Unpleasant though the alternatives are, given that Russia will clearly not allow pro-Russian forces in the east of the country to be militarily defeated, which is the least worse of these two outcomes? Either those areas are allowed to become relatively autonomous, or the situation is fought to a military finish, the only outcome of which—given that the west will not intervene militarily—would be Russian occupation of the whole country.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I will come on to what we need to do to respond to the Russian intervention. To some extent, I agree with my hon. Friend that we need political reform, but it should not only be about the two regions in Donbas. If he will forgive me, I will continue my current theme but I promise I will come back to that.

I want to talk not only about the fighting that is taking place in Ukraine, but about the massive abuse of human rights. We have Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers in eastern Ukraine, but confidence that they can monitor to the desirable extent is limited. I have heard criticism that they have been unable to carry out proper monitoring of the situation.

There has been a massive population displacement, from both Crimea and Donbas—something like 1.5 million people have been displaced, and that may well be an underestimate. Hostages have been taken. Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian servicewoman who was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament, is being held in Russia. Wearing my other hat as Chairman of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, I should mention that we are conscious that Oleg Sentsov, a distinguished Ukrainian film director, was abducted and is being held in Moscow. With my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), I attended a conference last week of the Council of Europe to discuss media freedom and the importance of the protection of journalists. We heard about two journalists who are being held hostage. There have also been a number of casualties among journalists.

If we listen to and watch Russian media, we get a completely different picture. There is no account of that whatever. The Russian propaganda machine is insistent that the Kiev Government are a bunch of fascist gangsters who have been imposed on the population. The Russians make regular claims of abuses by Ukrainian troops, and often produce photographs of bodies—it later becomes apparent that the photographs were taken during other conflicts many years ago.

Perhaps the most outrageous Russian media manipulation took place after the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17. There was overwhelming evidence, which is now widely recognised throughout the western world, that the airliner was shot down by Russian separatists using a surface-to-air missile that they had managed to obtain. Despite that, Russian media initially told us that the aircraft had been shot down by the Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians had mistaken it for President Putin’s plane and were trying to shoot him down. Another claim was that the incident was a plot dreamt up by the west, which had flown an airliner full of dead bodies over Ukraine that could then be brought down to discredit the Russian separatists. Even this week, pictures have been produced in Russian media claiming to show a jet fighter that shot the plane down.

Despite the fact that those pictures were obviously faked, the concern is that a huge number of people believed the story. A substantial proportion of the Russian population—the majority—are convinced it is true. I therefore welcome the Prime Minister’s recognition of the importance of countering that propaganda, which he gave me when I raised the matter with him after the statement on the G20. He said that President Obama had also recognised the need to counter Russian propaganda. I welcome the launch in this country of Ukraine Today, an English-language channel that will try to set out events accurately. I hope we and the Ukrainians do what we can to increase our efforts to get out the truth of what is happening. I welcome the intention of the new Ukrainian Government to set up a national public service broadcaster, which they have suggested could be modelled on the principle of the BBC.

What do we need to do to put pressure on Russia, and make it clear that its behaviour is unacceptable and that there must be penalties? Sanctions were first imposed after the annexation of Crimea and there has been a gradual escalation since then. Many people say that sanctions are pointless and have no effect, but they clearly are having a significant effect on the Russian economy. There has been a sharp downward revision in its prospects for growth, and they have affected the Russian currency and the Russian stock market. In my view, we need to do more. I would like to see a strengthening of sanctions. I recognise that that requires international agreement. The Minister and the Prime Minister have been at the forefront in pressing for the strongest response from the international community, but I have been alarmed by reports that some have been suggesting that perhaps we can now begin to relax sanctions. I hope the Minister can reassure me that we will make the case as strongly as possible that there is no justification to relaxing sanctions. If the current destabilisation continues, there may even be a case for strengthening sanctions still further.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

In January, the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will seek the reinstatement of its voting rights and the renewal of its credentials. There is a grave danger that some countries in the Council of Europe—possibly Germany, France or Greece—may vote to restore those rights. Is this not absolutely the wrong time to send the signal that what has been done by Russia is actually all right and there is no need for further sanctions?

[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.

[Chris Bryant]

There were people who advanced that argument in relation to Fiji, but when we threw Fiji out of the Commonwealth it eventually—quite recently—returned to democracy.

[Mr Whittingdale]

These are discussions that will no doubt take place in the Council of Europe. There is not a complete contradiction between the views of my hon. Friends the Members for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) and for North Thanet. The issue of voting rights is currently on the table.

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

On my hon. Friend’s previous point about sanctions, there is no doubt that if the Russians were to take further military action on any scale in Ukraine we should increase the sanctions regime. There are two areas on which we would need to increase sanctions: anything that could be regarded as military supplies, including French warships; and oil and energy, which would mean that our German friends would suffer considerably as the largest importers of Ukrainian oil and, in particular, gas. Do we not need to try to get all our European allies on board to make the sanctions regime work?

[Mr Whittingdale]

Clearly we do. I am sure the Minister will respond to that point, but my understanding is that we have been very active in pressing the case and I hope we will continue to do so. My hon. Friend refers to the possibility of having to strengthen sanctions in the future. My one concern—I hope it is misplaced, but I fear there is a reason for it to be taken seriously—is whether Russia might seek to move beyond eastern Ukraine and establish the land link between eastern Ukraine and Crimea, and at the same time acquire a seaport at Mariupol. There have been suggestions that that is in the Russian mind, and there is heavy troop build-up that might support the idea, but whether it happens we must wait to see. We must make it clear, however, that were it to take place, there would be severe consequences.

[Sir Gerald Howarth (Aldershot) (Con)]

I am sorry I was not here for the opening of my hon. Friend’s remarks. He is absolutely right about the risk of Russia’s seeking to annex land giving them a land link to Crimea. I cannot emphasise strongly enough to him and the House, as I have been warning for months, that this is Russia’s intention. Does he agree that this is not just a remote prospect, but a key component of Russia’s plans? Putin’s plan is to acquire a land link with Crimea and possibly then to link up with Transnistria, and leave Kiev and the bulk of Ukraine as a rump for the EU.

[Mr Whittingdale]

rose—

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)]

Order. Before the hon. Gentleman continues, I gently remind him that opening remarks in a Back-Bench debate are supposed to be for 10 to 15 minutes. He has now been speaking for 25 minutes, although I realise he has been pulled into different areas by interventions. Members who wish to speak and would not like to be under a time limit should bear it in mind that the debate will have to end promptly at 5 o’clock. I hope he will concentrate on making his points and concluding his speech.

[Mr Whittingdale]

I am grateful, Madam Deputy Speaker. I have been tempted by my hon. Friends. As you point out, the debate runs until 5 o’clock, so I hope there will be time for everyone to speak.

Moving on rapidly, I want to talk about the economic challenges facing Ukraine, which is an area where I think we can do a lot more. The challenges are considerable. There has been a massive currency depreciation, the economy is likely to shrink for the third year in a row, and about 20% of production capacity in eastern Ukraine has essentially been lost. The immediate challenge is the winter. It is now 0° in Kiev; a few days ago, it was minus 15°, and obviously demand for energy will be high. Ukrainians are prepared to accept sacrifices—they told me, “We will take cold showers”—but it is important that the energy supply is there, and I am reassured that gas reserves have been increased and that the gas supply has now been reversed from Europe back into Ukraine.

What Ukraine needs, however, is investment. Yesterday, I chaired a session of the Adam Smith Ukrainian investment conference where we heard from business men that they wished to invest but needed the confidence to do so. There is still concern about the level of corruption, which is one of the greatest challenges facing the country. I want to make two, related suggestions that I hope the Government will consider. The first comes from the British-Ukrainian chamber of commerce, which is pressing for a political risk insurance scheme to be established. The World Bank already has the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, but it is limited in what support it can offer Ukraine, so the chamber of commerce has suggested that there be a special fund to provide political and conflict risk insurance.

Related to that, the Federation of Employers of Ukraine is assembling a private guarantee fund, and there are calls for a new Marshall plan for Ukraine, which I understand is getting support from the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, the French Government and America. So there are things we could be doing to increase the confidence of western investors that it is safe to invest in Ukraine.

[Sir Roger Gale]

I rise to intervene at the risk of infuriating you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope it will be taken on board that my hon. Friend has been extremely generous in giving way.

It is not just Mayor Klitschko’s Kiev that will need help through the winter, but the whole of Ukraine. If the present and only legitimate Government are to survive, do we not need to move immediately to give whatever support we can to help the Government survive through the winter and into the new year?

[Mr Whittingdale]

The challenges of the next few months, through the winter, are substantial, but hopefully the prospects will improve if they can get through it. I was encouraged yesterday that Vitali Klitschko seemed to think they were well placed to resist the problems of severe winter weather, but obviously it will be a challenge.

The real key to the future of Ukraine—this is the message we hear from every Ukrainian—is that there has to be serious reform and it has to take place quickly. It is essential that measures are put in place to prevent corruption, to make changes to political institutions and also to bring about devolution. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) talked about semi-autonomous status; I would not go that far, but it is certainly desirable to devolve power and give greater responsibility to all the regions of Ukraine and to more local institutions.

I am encouraged in that I think the new Government under President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk are determined to make the changes and they have brought in as Ministers people with real expertise, some of whom have come from different countries. We have an American-born Ukrainian Finance Minister and there is an Estonian in the Government. That, I think, sends the message that wherever the expertise lies, the Government will take advantage of it.

Perhaps even more encouraging were the recent elections to the Ukrainian Parliament in October. The Russians made out that that would lead to extremists coming in. Indeed, they even tried to announce that extremists had been elected, but when the results came out, they showed that Svoboda, the right-wing party that had been in the previous Ukrainian Parliament, did not meet the threshold, achieving only 4.7%; while the Communists achieved only 3.9%. What was elected was a coalition of three parties, which are all now western-leading, pro-European and working together.

Perhaps most encouraging of all—I am coming to the end, Madam Deputy Speaker—is the fact that the new Ukrainian Parliament includes a number of young people who have come out of civil society and academia. Such people said to me that they previously never thought it worth getting involved in politics because the whole system was corrupt. Now they have chosen to stand for election and they are determined to take forward the reform programme. Let me mention two of them for a specific reason: Svitlana Zalishchuk and Aleksei Ryabchyn. They are young Ukrainians who have been elected, and they are also John Smith fellows, and I want to pay tribute to the work of the John Smith fellowship—not just in Ukraine, but in a number of east European countries, where it is helping to give young, up-and-coming politicians the experience and the opportunity they need through the fellowship. It is now paying off, in that those people are being elected to help govern their country.

I believe that we have a duty to try to help Ukraine in its political, constitutional and economic reform programme, and I very much hope that we will soon be able to ratify the European Union association agreement. Ten countries in Europe have already done so, and I hope the Minister will be able to say something about that. We have an obligation because we are signatories of the Budapest memorandum, which Ukrainians still feel strongly gives us an obligation to assist—not necessarily militarily, but at the very least to give all the help we can.

As was said earlier, Ukraine is in the front line, but it does not stop there. President Putin talks repeatedly about “Novorossiya”, which extends the border to Moldova, Georgia and the Baltics. We know that Ukraine is where the test is at the moment, but what happens there will have huge implications for global security. That is why I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I look forward to hearing both Front-Bench team responses in due course.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Whittingdale]

There is very little time left, so I will just thank all Members who have taken part in the debate. We may have come to this issue from slightly different perspectives, but there is no great disagreement between us. I did not suggest at any point that Ukraine should join NATO; indeed, I would have reservations about that at this time. Obviously, considerations for the Baltic countries that are in NATO are different from those that are not. What I do believe in is the right of the Ukrainian people to choose their own future, and they have made absolutely clear what they want. Every single party elected to the Rada in the parliamentary elections recently supports Ukraine moving closer to Europe and adopting western values and the values of a free and democratic society. We have both moral and economic obligations to help them. I was delighted to hear what the Minister said. I hope that the message will go out that this country supports the people of Ukraine and wants to help them achieve that future.