Ukraine

Julian Lewis Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

The Defence Command Paper published last year set out plans to establish, and grow to a significant size, the National Cyber Force, the UK’s offensive cyber-capability that will complement our defensive capability. That is a joint GCHQ and Defence agency that will be based in north-west England. It has already been established and is starting to grow. I cannot comment on the operations that it will undertake, but I am a soldier and I was always taught that the best part of defence is offence.

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

What will the Government do to try to impress on President Putin that even if he invades the rest of Ukraine without military comeback on behalf of Ukraine, it would be a fatal error for him to think that he could then invade an outlying NATO state—one of the Baltic states, for example—without an attack on one rightly being considered to be an attack on all NATO members?

[Mr Wallace]

President Putin’s publicly stated view is that by potentially dealing with Ukraine, or preventing Ukraine from joining NATO, he is in fact saving us all from a future war; he wrongly asserts that if Ukraine joined NATO, Ukraine would then attack Crimea and Donbas, and that would trigger a NATO response. My right hon. Friend is an expert on NATO and knows that is a fantasy scenario, but it could potentially be used as a justification. It is therefore important that we demonstrate that although Ukraine is not in NATO, we can do our best to protect its right to choose; and it is also important that we make it crystal clear to the President of Russia that if he tries this with NATO partners, no matter how big or small, article 5 is a reality.