Russia’s Grand Strategy

John Whittingdale Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Harwich and North Essex (Sir Bernard Jenkin) on securing this debate for a second time. Looking at what was said a year ago, I think there was some foresight then and, if greater attention had been paid at that time, we might not be in such a bad state today. I do, however, want to differ slightly from the hon. Member for Tiverton and Honiton (Richard Foord), who said it was not just Putin—it was the whole of the Russian people. We should not demonise the Russian people. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) said in his very good speech, the Russian people have suffered terribly under the Tsars, the Bolsheviks, the Nazi invasion, communism and now under Putin. They have never known democracy and freedom. That is the tragedy that they face.

Putin is a final successor in that long line and the warning signs were there early on. Putin was originally thought to be a manager who would restore stability after the rather chaotic Yeltsin times and would not interfere too much with the oligarchs. That did not last long. We know he called the oligarchs in and made it clear to them who was now in charge.

We first saw the signs in 2006 with the murder on British soil of Alexander Litvinenko. If anybody wants reminding of that, there is a very good ITV dramatisation with David Tennant available now. We saw it again with the war in Georgia in 2008, when the west stood by and did very little. An exceptionally good documentary by Norma Percy, a superb documentary maker, is about to be screened on the BBC. It is called “Putin, Russia and the West.” I was able to see a preview of the first episode and strongly recommend it. She looks at the 2013 eastern partnership summit when Yanukovych went to Vilnius to sign the agreement that would have led to Ukraine’s membership of the European Union. Just before he signed, he got a call from the Kremlin, was told he was not allowed to sign and he did not. That sparked what became known as the Revolution of Dignity at the Maidan and led to 100 people being shot down by snipers from hotel roofs. Shortly after that, Putin took advantage and Crimea was invaded. Again, we did not do nearly enough. Indeed, Barack Obama, US President at the time, when asked about the invasion of Crimea, condemned it but said:

“Russia is a regional power that is threatening some of its immediate neighbours…Russia’s actions are a problem. They don’t pose the number one national security to the United States.”

If ever there was an invitation to Putin to carry on, that was it. Actually, we know—this comes out in the documentary —that the description of Russia as a “regional power” infuriated Putin because he wanted to restore what the Soviet Union had been: the second major player in global power. That has always been part of his strategy.

The hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant) asked if these matters had been debated. I had a debate in 2014, just after the Crimean invasion, drawing attention to the threat. You, Mr Deputy Speaker, participated and made some very helpful remarks in the debate. That led to the British Government’s Operation Orbital, in which we supplied training and munitions to the Ukrainian forces. It is fair to say that, had we not done that, the Ukrainians would not have been able to resist the Russian invasion as effectively as they have. They recognise that and are open in paying tribute to this country for the support we gave them, and continue to give them, in Operation Orbital.

That led to the election in 2019 of President Zelensky. I was an election observer in both rounds of that election, and it was the enthusiasm of the Ukrainian people for the democratic process and their ability to change their leader—they did—and bring in somebody committed to wiping out corruption that really frightened Putin, too. He saw that if that could happen in Ukraine, it could happen in Russia as well. So the narrative was created that, somehow, Ukraine was a bogus, illegitimate regime run by Nazis, that the Ukrainian people were all oppressed and that they would all cheer when the Russians came to liberate them. Never has a more ludicrous justification been given.

We have seen the seeds of resistance not just from the Ukrainian armed forces but from the whole Ukrainian people to the Russian invasion. Kherson was one of the four provinces where we were told people had voted overwhelmingly in a referendum that they wanted to join the Russian Federation. We then saw the scenes of jubilation on the streets of Kherson as they were liberated by the Ukrainian forces not that long ago.

The truth is that Russia is an authoritarian regime. I do not just want to talk about Ukraine; we also need to help to free the Russian people. This week, I had the privilege of meeting again Yevgenia Kara-Murza, who is married to Vladimir Kara-Murza, who is being held as a political prisoner in Russia. We are told that there are something like 500 political prisoners in Russia. Mr Kara-Murza is slightly different in that he is a British passport holder. I was disappointed to hear from his wife that she felt that the British Government could be doing more to campaign and help him to obtain his release.

Mr Deputy Speaker, as you and others know, the other area that I have long followed is media freedom. Russia has fallen even further in Reporters Without Borders’ index of media freedom to 155th out of 180 countries. It has concluded:

“Since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, almost all independent media have been banned, blocked and/or declared ‘foreign agents.’ All others are subject to military censorship.

All privately owned independent TV channels are banned from broadcasting… The Russian version of Euronews was suspended”.

It added:

“Among the big print media outlets…those that had preserved their independence and were under constant threat of closure, like…Novaya Gazeta, have had to suspend their publications.”

Media freedom does not exist in Russia. In particular, there is the recent case of the Russian journalist Ivan Safronov, who reported information that was already available for anybody to see online and has just received a sentence of 22 years’ imprisonment for revealing so-called state secrets.

One day, I hope that Russia, too, will be free. To conclude, I will refer to some remarks made by the hon. Member for Rhondda. My hon. Friend the Member for Henley (John Howell) was successful in having Russia removed from the Council of Europe, but unfortunately Russia remains a member of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. However, we have been looking at the possibility of prosecution for war crimes. It would be unprecedented in that previous war crimes cases have always been brought against perpetrators who were part of regimes that had been defeated and removed. While I would love to think that Mr Putin will be defeated and removed, that seems unlikely in the immediate future, so it may be that we will have to prosecute in absentia, but that is not a reason not to do so. A special tribunal may even need to be created for that.

There are four potential crimes here, and Russia is probably guilty of all of them. They include crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. On genocide, as was said, we should have recognised Russia’s earlier attempt at genocide in Ukraine—the Holodomor—which shows that there has been a long-standing wish to suppress Ukrainian identity. That could conceivably be called genocide. The fourth charge will be the war of aggression, and it may be possible to require reparations to be paid.

I finish by very much supporting the suggestion made by the hon. Member for Rhondda. There are vast Russian assets in this country and elsewhere in the west. It must be right that, like Canada and Estonia, we look at potentially using those assets to rebuild Ukraine, the bill for which may well already be approaching $1 trillion. Russia has to be not just held to account for its crimes, but made to pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine.