Oral Answers to Questions

Kevin Brennan Excerpts

Tuesday 8th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Simon Burns (Chelmsford) (Con)]

8. What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Ukraine.

[Kevin Brennan (Cardiff West) (Lab)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of threats to the territorial integrity of Ukraine.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr William Hague)]

We are gravely concerned about the situation in Crimea and in the east of Ukraine, where armed groups have seized Government buildings in Donetsk, Kharkiv and Lugansk. There can be no justification for this action, which bears all the hallmarks of a Russian strategy to destabilise Ukraine. Russia should be clear that the deliberate escalation of this crisis will bring serious political and economic consequences.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hague]

My right hon. Friend makes an important point. The guiding principles for us are that the development of democratic institutions in Ukraine and a rules-based international system are in the national interest of the United Kingdom. For any parties or leaders in Britain to feed a Russian propaganda machine after the invasion of a neighbouring country is not a responsible position to take, particularly for anyone who professes to believe in the independence and sovereignty of nations.

[Kevin Brennan]

The authorisation that President Putin obtained in February to use troops in Ukraine did not specify that it applied to Crimea only. What is our policy in the event of such a Sudeten-like land grab in eastern Ukraine?

[Mr Hague]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right, and that was of course one of the most alarming aspects of the authority that President Putin asked for in February—that it covered the use of armed force in Ukraine in general. As he knows, the European Union and the United States have imposed certain sanctions, but the European Commission has been asked by the European Council to draw up further far-reaching measures and economic and other sanctions to be implemented in the event of a further escalation and intensification of the crisis by Russia. Any invasion of eastern Ukraine of course falls into that category.