Ukraine

Liam Byrne Excerpts

Monday 20th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The British people, in every corner of the United Kingdom, have demonstrated a generosity of spirit that is admirable. That should make every single Member of this House proud.

Ukraine’s heroic armed forces have already recaptured thousands of square miles from the Russians, driving them out of more than half of all the territory it grabbed last year. But Putin shows no sign of withdrawing his forces. If we are to change his mind, Ukraine will need to take back more land. Today, the Russian army is on the defensive, morale is pitiful, casualties are immense, and its troops are running out of key weapons and ammunition. This is exactly the right moment for Ukraine to seize the advantage. That is why we and our allies must step up our effort to ensure that Ukraine wins this war and secures a lasting peace. Justice must be served on those responsible for war crimes and atrocities, in accordance with international law.

[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

The Foreign Secretary has made an outstanding start to the debate. Last week, the Vice-President of the United States said that the US has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity. Has His Majesty’s Government now come formally to the same conclusion?

[James Cleverly]

We are looking very closely at the evidence that is being compiled. While we have not made a formal designation, I can assure the right hon. Gentleman, and other right hon. and hon. Members across the House, that we will ensure that those who are responsible for atrocities, whether in the field or right up to the desk of Vladimir Putin himself, will be held accountable.

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[Mr Lammy]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise the issue of Moldova and its vulnerability at this time. I fully suspect that other Members will return to this issue in the course of the debate. Moldova is feeling very worried one year on from the start of the war. We must stand with them. My hon. Friend is right to refer to the cyber-terrorism alongside it that has become a benchmark of Putin’s aggression.

Thirdly, we must never again allow ourselves to become dependent on autocrats and their fossil fuels for our energy. Decarbonisation is now a vital national security imperative. The faster we can transition to clean power, the quicker we can undermine Putin’s war effort. Every solar panel is a shield to Putin’s aggression; every wind farm a defence against dependency. In developing our home-grown energy systems we can build the green jobs and the transformational industry of the future.

Fourthly, we are reminded of the essential relationship with our European allies. We have shared interests, shared geography and common values with our neighbours in Europe. NATO will always be the anchor of our defence and the cornerstone of European security, but it is more important than ever that we have strong diplomatic partnerships with our European allies and a close, co-operative relationship with the EU itself. This is too serious a time to be starting unnecessary fights or engaging in petty diplomatic squabbles.

As we approach the one-year anniversary of the war, it is obvious that we are entering a new and dangerous phase. Last week, NATO and western intelligence agencies warned that Putin had started amassing fighter jets and helicopters near the Ukrainian border—a sign that as we enter spring, Putin is adopting a new approach to the war that could see greater use of Russian air power to support its faltering land offensive. In recent days, both Ukrainian and NATO officials have warned of ammunition shortages, dwindling domestic stockpiles and supply chains under increased pressure. If Ukraine is to prevail over what Putin will throw at it, the UK and our allies should set aside individual announcements and instead lay out a long-term strategy to provide the support that Ukraine needs, whether it be ammunition, additional air defence capabilities or NATO-standard weaponry.

We need to ensure that Ukraine has our total support to tackle the Russian threat from air and land. Alongside that military assistance, we need a new diplomatic drive to sustain and broaden the diplomatic coalition against this war. Russia’s invasion was an attack not just on Ukraine but on the international order itself. It is perhaps the most egregious violation of the UN charter since it was written: a sovereign UN member invaded by a permanent member of the Security Council.

We need to work with Ukraine and partners around the world to make clear the truth of this war and counter Putin’s propaganda; to make it clear that it is Russia that has chosen this war; it is Russia that is the aggressor; it is Russia that is willing to use global hunger as a bargaining chip; it is Russia that is trying to change international borders through force. We will be less secure if that aggression is allowed to succeed.

Our support for Ukraine must entail action at home as well as abroad. At home here in the UK, we must complete the job and get our own house in order. That means tackling Putin’s kleptocracy, closing the loopholes that continue to exist in our sanctions regime and properly enforcing our own laws on illicit finance. We will go still further. Russian rockets and Iranian drones have destroyed Ukraine’s hospitals, energy plants and homes. Whole villages, towns and cities have been reduced to dust, rubble and ruin. By some estimates, the damage to infrastructure is more than $100 billion. Without proper funding, the essential task of rebuilding Ukraine will take decades to complete.

As long ago as July 2022, the then Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), said that the Government supported using frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine. But since then, we have heard nothing. Sure, the right hon. Lady will refer to that in her speech later. The EU has already set out a plan to shift frozen assets into a fund to help rebuild Ukraine. As has been said, Canada has already legislated to do that, so why have our Government not done the same? Ukrainians do not have the luxury of time. This is an urgent point, so I ask the Foreign Secretary once more: what steps have this Government taken since July 2022 to ensure that seized Russian state assets can be used for the benefit of Ukraine? Further, will the Government support the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), which would allow Russian state assets to be used for that same purpose?

Throughout the horrific last 12 months, the body of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine has grown and grown. On a weekly basis we hear horrific reports of mass graves discovered in liberated areas. On the TV, we see sickening videos of schools, hospitals and churches bombed to destruction, and innocent civilians murdered and tortured. These crimes demand accountability and they demand justice. We strongly support all international efforts to document, investigate and prosecute these crimes. Again, we believe we should go further.

Since March, Labour has been calling on the Government to support the creation of a special tribunal to prosecute Putin and his top brass for the crime of aggression. The Foreign Secretary knows that, while the International Criminal Court can investigate war crimes committed in Ukraine, it cannot investigate Russia for the crime of aggression. Only a special tribunal, working alongside the ICC, can ensure that this gap of accountability is bridged. The Ukrainian people want this tribunal. Zelensky wants this tribunal. The EU Commission wants this tribunal. France, Germany, Estonia, Latvia and countless others have called for it. So will the Foreign Secretary commit to its creation and, if so, what steps has he taken to make it happen?

Finally, Putin’s invasion of Ukraine has demonstrated more clearly than ever before how our security is connected with the security of the rest of Europe. The past 12 months have shown vividly what can be achieved when we stand united with our allies on the other side of the channel.

[Liam Byrne]

My right hon. Friend is making a brilliant speech. Was he as surprised as I was that there was so little mention of that kind of threat in the Integrated Review? Does he support the call that the next iteration of that Integrated Review absolutely has to put the re-containment of Russia centre stage?

[Mr Lammy]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He has been crystal clear on that from the Back Benches. We await that review, but what he says has to be central. We must get it right. Obviously, we will scrutinise it in every detail. In many of the areas that have been critical to supporting Ukraine defend herself against Russia—sanctions, energy security and defence—our co-operation with the European Union has been critical—it has been critical to our support for Ukraine and, through that, Ukraine’s survival. It is more important than ever that we have strong structured mechanisms for dialogue and co-operation with our allies in Europe. That is why Labour has proposed a new UK-EU security pact that could cover deeper co-operation on foreign policy, defence, security and law enforcement.

Labour’s commitment to NATO is unshakeable, yet the UK’s leadership in NATO could be at risk, with growing concerns over our capacity to meet NATO’s obligations in full. While 20 NATO nations have revised their defence strategies since the start of the invasion, this Government have not done so, so I ask the Foreign Secretary: will the Government commit to rebooting our defence plans, and will they halt their planned cuts to the British Army?

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[Boris Johnson (Uxbridge and South Ruislip) (Con)]

I pay tribute to the Foreign Secretary and the shadow Foreign Secretary for the quality of their speeches this afternoon.

In the year since Vladimir Putin launched his vicious and unnecessary war in Ukraine he has failed in almost all of his objectives. He has failed to take Kyiv. He has been sent scuttling from the Kharkiv region. He has been forced to evacuate Kherson. He has cost the lives of at least 60,000 Russian troops, and seen probably more than 100,000 injured. In the areas that he has occupied in Ukraine, he has created a new Flanders Fields of mud, trenches and blasted trees, where months of high-intensity shelling and bloodshed produced gains that could be measured in yards. He has been forced to such desperate expedients as sending to the front prisoners or terrified members of ethnic minorities recruited from remote provinces. As my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary pointed out in his powerful speech, he is running pitifully low on the technically advanced weaponry that he increasingly needs.

The seemingly irresistible force of the Russian military is breaking on the immoveable object of Ukrainian resistance. We in this House remain lost in admiration for the Ukrainians, for their heroism and for the continued inspiration that they are given by Volodymyr Zelensky. Yet it remains all too possible that Putin can still achieve something that he can call a victory. All that he needs to do is hang on to some piece of land that he has conquered and the signal will go around the world that aggression can pay, and that borders can be changed by force. All he needs to do to claim some kind of victory is to continue the cynical policy that he has followed since the first invasion of 2014, which the shadow Foreign Secretary rightly dwelt on, to use his foothold in Ukraine to destabilise the whole country.

Unless Putin is purged from Ukrainian territory, he will twist his knife in the wound. He will bide his time. He will wait until he can attack again. He will continue to menace the lives of the Georgians, the Moldovans—as the hon. Member for Slough (Mr Dhesi) rightly pointed out—the Balts, and everyone living in the periphery of the old Soviet empire. Unless he is finally defeated in Ukraine, Putin’s revanchist ambitions will be unchecked. That is why it is so crucial that we now accelerate our support for Ukraine and give them the tools to finish the job. We can all be proud of what successive Governments have done to help the Ukrainians whose armed forces continue to fight like lions. Indeed, it is they who deserve the credit, but we should be in no doubt that western equipment has been invaluable.

The story of the past 12 months is that, sooner or later, having exhausted all the other options, we give them what they need—from anti-tank missiles to HIMARS to tanks. If the choice is sooner or later, then, for heaven’s sake, let us give these weapons sooner. It is absurd for western supporters to keep pressing the Ukrainians, as they did at the Munich security conference, on how long this is going to take; the answer to that question is to a large extent determined by us.

It is a fine thing that we have finally promised tanks, but there is no conceivable ground for delay in getting them to Ukraine. We need those machines—Abrams, Challengers, Leopards—to make a real difference in real time in the next few weeks, not next year. It is admirable that we are proposing to train Ukrainian fighters to fly NATO fast jets—I hear the caution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart)—but it is curious that we are doing so before we have even taken the decision in principle to give them the planes. Let us cut to the chase and give them the planes too. If the House was in any doubt about the urgency of increasing our supply of equipment to the Ukrainians, it is becoming ever clearer that China is preparing to arm the Russians.

The Ukrainians have shown what they can do. They have the elan and the courage to sweep Putin from their lands, and they have the inestimable psychological advantage that they are fighting for hearth and home. With the right kit, including more long-range artillery, they can punch through the land bridge, cut off Crimea and deal a knockout blow to Putin’s plans, and they should not stop there.

It is time for us all to end our obfuscation about what we think of as a Ukrainian victory and what we think of as Ukraine. The Ukrainians must be helped to restore not just the borders of 24 February last year, but the 1991 borders on which they voted for independence. It was the west’s collective weakness in 2014, its effective acquiescence in Putin’s aggression, that helped to convince him that he could launch an attack last year. Whatever the good intentions of the Normandy format, we cannot say that it was a success; nor, frankly, can we say that the UK was right to absent ourselves from that format and from those discussions. We must not make that mistake again.

After a year of slaughter, we must do more collectively to show the people of Russia what they are losing by Putin’s misrule. We should tighten the sanctions on oil and gas wherever we can. I hear the arguments that hon. Members make about the need to use frozen assets and, whatever the complexities, I think the House deserves to hear those arguments properly thrashed out. We should be making it clear to Putin’s entire war machine, as well as to the regime in the Kremlin, that they will be held to account for their crimes, for the torture, rape, and indiscriminate killing they have sponsored. We must show them that the mills of justice grind slowly, but they grind small.

We should designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, placing that country where it now rightly belongs on the list that includes Cuba, North Korea and Syria—and, by the way, we should designate the infamous and bloodthirsty Wagner Group a foreign terrorist organisation. That is a badge that is now richly deserved and long overdue.

[Liam Byrne]

Will the right hon. Gentleman give way?

[Boris Johnson]

I am just winding up.

Above all, we must give the Ukrainians what they need to win this war this year. By ensuring that Ukraine wins and Putin fails, we are making the best and most financially efficient investment in the long-term security of not just the Euro-Atlantic area, but the whole world. We all know that we in this country made a promise to Ukraine under the 1994 Budapest memorandum, when the Ukrainians gave up their vast nuclear arsenal. We said we would come to their aid in the event of an attack. Now is the time, finally, to do what we can to honour that promise. The Ukrainians are fighting not just for their freedom, but for the cause of freedom around the world. We should give them what they need, not next month, not next year, but now.

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[Liam Byrne (Birmingham, Hodge Hill) (Lab)]

It is a great privilege to follow the excellent speech of the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), as well as that of the right hon. Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Boris Johnson), the Foreign Secretary and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy).

I will add three points to the debate: first, on the importance of how we break the balance of force that we see arranged on the ground; secondly, on how we choke the oligarchs of war who are helping to supply Putin’s war machine; and thirdly, on how we commence the pursuit of justice. There is more to say about that, because I was unhappy to hear the Foreign Secretary, who is just leaving his place, not row in behind the Vice President of the United States and say that our Government had also arrived at the conclusion that Russia was committing crimes against humanity. One has to ask, how much more evidence do they really need?

We have heard the call loud and clear from two former Prime Ministers about the need to supply what Ukraine needs now. The truth is that both sides of the conflict will find it difficult to summon the 400,000 to 500,000 troops necessary to make a breakthrough one way or the other, so the challenge that may lie ahead is that Ukraine continues to suffer the pattern of more and more troops being thrown into infantry attacks under artillery fire in the east of the country and endless missile strikes on population centres. That is a grinding, terrible waste of life.

We have to leapfrog out of this bad habit that we have gotten into where first we say no, then we say yes, with an extended time period in between. On air defence, we said no to Patriot missiles until we said yes. On tanks, we said no until, months and months later, we said yes. Now, can we please just short-circuit the process and send the F-16s as fast as possible, with trained pilots? It is great to hear that we are training pilots, but at last week’s Munich security conference there was a clear consensus among Democrats and Republicans to send a very clear message to the President of the United States that it was time that fast jets were sent to support our allies in Ukraine. We heard directly from President Zelensky, just a few yards from this Chamber, that the wings of freedom are needed today, so let us jump out of the no and get to yes as fast as possible.

[Mr Francois]

We gave 14 Challenger 2 tanks to Ukraine. Those are very capable tanks, but in and of themselves they will not change the whole course of the war. What they did do, however, was help unlock the delivery of hundreds of Leopards. What the Ukrainians really want are MiGs, which they are familiar with using, and F-16s. By the same argument, if we gave one squadron of older Typhoons that then unlocked hundreds of MiGs and F-16s, that would be worth doing, would it not?

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[Liam Byrne]

Personally, I think it would, but my key point to those on the Treasury Front Bench is: can we please short-circuit the time it takes to get from no to yes? We have gone through this loop—this doom loop—at least twice before, so let us short-circuit the nonsense now and crack on with it. The Treasury Front Benchers will find that there is cross-party consensus on that question, so please just put the decision in front of us from the Dispatch Box. Last week, we heard from the head of the Ukrainian air force that those fast jets are needed now in order to change the balance of power on the battlefield, but also to protect the population centres from Iranian drones as well as Russian cruise missiles. Every single day that we do not take that decision is a day when Putin is allowed to continue raining terror down, not just on the troops of the brave Ukrainian armed forces, but on the civilians of Ukraine. He is using that capability now to perpetrate war crimes, and we in this country have a moral responsibility to damn well stop him.

Secondly, we have to move harder and faster to choke to death the oligarchs of war, starting with the dogs of war at the head of the Wagner Group. Frankly, we were too slow to implement the sanctions that we now have. I am glad that this House passed the measures with cross-party consent, basically allowing us to cut and paste the EU sanctions regime with a little bit of the American regime and to get that into place. It was a shame that it took the war in Ukraine to move a little further ahead with some of the anti-kleptocracy laws that we now have, but here we are—all progress is good.

There is clear evidence, however, that sanctions are being widely evaded, with goods and oil being exported to India and China, rebadged, and then re-exported from there. Given that the Treasury’s Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation thinks it is okay to issue sanction waivers to Prigozhin and his lawyers, I urge Treasury Front Benchers—together with the Americans, if necessary—to get a lot tougher in clamping down on that export and re-export business, because right now that business is supplying dollars that are buying weapons to support Putin.

The symbol of a different order of things has to be a radically different approach to taking on the Wagner Group. We know that today, the Wagner Group is recruiting from prisons—it is recruiting from all over. It is mobilising forces on the eastern front in Ukraine, and frankly, it has opened a second front against democracy in Russia as well. It is active in at least five countries and has business interests in at least another 15. It is short-circuiting the sanctions regime by trading in oil, manganese, gold and uranium—you name it—so it is a matter of concern to this House that we are woefully behind the sanctions regimes that the United States and the Europeans have put in place to suffocate Prigozhin and his forces.

[Mr Dhesi]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does he agree that we also need to try to rein in the Wagner Group’s growing influence in Africa? It is having more and more of an impact on eroding democracy in many nations across the globe, so it is about time that our Government, working with allies, try to clamp down on that.

[Liam Byrne]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The right hon. Member for South West Norfolk talked about the need for a global alliance to defend democracy—well, that global alliance has to extend to Africa. We should be concerned about the fact that the Wagner Group is now active in five countries and is poised to make something of a breakthrough in the Sahel after the French evacuation from Mali. Frankly, we should be getting a lot tougher on the Wagner Group, and that should start with a much more comprehensive sanctions regime. When the Minister winds up, I urge him to tell us that the Government will replicate the United States sanctions regime on 21 different individuals who are associated with the Wagner Group and on 16 different corporate entities. That is three times as many sanctions as we have against individuals or businesses associated with Prigozhin.

Let us go further. On 26 January, we heard a very clear pronouncement from our allies in the United States declaring the Wagner Group to be a proscribed organisation, because it is patently a transnational criminal organisation. That contrasts with the situation a couple of weeks ago, when the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), who is not in his place, came before the Foreign Affairs Committee. We were grateful to him for doing so, because for some time the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence could not quite decide who was the Minister responsible for taking on the Wagner Group. In due course, the machine did its job and the poor Minister was summoned before us. He was not able to say when the Wagner Group was going to be sanctioned; indeed, he extracted himself from that line of questioning by saying, of course, that it was not his job but a matter for the Home Office—joined-up Government at its very best.

What we have at the moment is not good enough. We need a clear plan, a clear timetable and a clear commitment from the Minister responding today that the Wagner Group will be sanctioned here, just as it is in the United States of America. We need a clear commitment that the individuals who have been sanctioned by the Americans and the European Union will also be sanctioned here.

Finally, while we are at it, could we now end the complete scandal of the Treasury itself licensing sanction waivers for Russian warlords to fly lawyers from London to St Petersburg to summon up a case and to sue journalists such as Eliot Higgins in English courts? What a complete scandal. To top it all, Eliot Higgins was told last week that he is the security risk, and as such cannot be allowed to go to cinema showings of the new film about the brave Mr Navalny. What have we become when we are licensing English lawyers to sue English journalists in English courts? It is not good enough. It is an outrage and it needs to stop, and we need to send a clear signal from this House this afternoon that it ends now. While the Minister is at it, he might consider paying Mr Eliot Higgins’s legal bills. This will surprise the House, but I am told that Mr Prigozhin has not paid his legal bills, which are about £116,000, while poor Mr Higgins has. He has had to cough up about £70,000, so perhaps the Government could do a little whip-round for Mr Higgins and supply an apology to him and to Bellingcat at the end of the debate.

We have to make sure that the weapons supplies are in place and that the sanctions regime is far more effective, and the third piece of the puzzle is that we have to commence the search for justice. It is excellent that the United Kingdom has come together with its allies to ensure that there are prosecutions for war crimes, but many of us in this House will want to see prosecutions for the crime of aggression as well. The abuse that has been laid out has been appalling, with murder, torture, rape, deportation, executions, electrocutions and the crimes of Bucha. The sexual assault of a four-year-old child was reported to the United Nations last week. That is why all of us in this House today should welcome the statement by the vice-president of the United States last week that the US has formally determined that Russia has committed crimes against humanity. We should make the same declaration ourselves. We should do it quickly, and I hope we will hear a gameplan for just that from the Minister at the end of the debate.

[Bob Stewart]

Speaking as someone who has given evidence in war crimes trials—five of them—the thing that really horrified me was that we only got a very small percentage of the people who carried out such crimes. I am talking about genocide and war against humanity. It was a percentage so small that it is almost impossible to measure. If we are going to do this properly, we have to put a heck of a lot of effort into having war crimes trials—almost more effort than with the Nuremberg trials and so on.

[Liam Byrne]

The whole of the House is grateful for the work of the right hon. and gallant Member, because we know that more people were prosecuted because of the work he did than otherwise would have been the case. He is absolutely right to say what he has said. It was 80 years ago that the free world came together to ensure the prosecution of the guilty at Nuremberg. The table of crimes presented was clear. It was crimes against humanity, and we should remind ourselves in this House exactly what that table of crimes entailed: murder, extermination, enslavement, deportation and persecution on political, racial and religious grounds. Those are precisely the crimes that President Putin has committed in Ukraine, and we must make sure, just as we did in Nuremberg, that the free world comes together once more to hold him, as well as his henchmen, to account.

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[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

It is an honour to follow both the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis) and the hon. Member for Bradford South (Judith Cummins), who really brought this back down to the individual experience of a terrible war, for which I am grateful.

I am going to spend the next few minutes arguing that we should provide for war and prepare for peace. We in the UK should increase seriously our industrial production for defence—Ukraine’s and our own—while also isolating Russia and seizing diplomatic opportunities when they arise. We could characterise this as better preparation and jaw-jaw. I would also like to identify a couple of events from the last century or so that can shine a light on the situation that Ukraine finds itself facing and that Ukraine’s partners find ourselves facing: the 1915 shell crisis in Britain, and the 1999 withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo.

First, however, let us recall NATO’s role in this war. In Russian propaganda now, Moscow is characterising this as NATO’s war. The Kremlin suggests that the Government in Kyiv is a puppet and that NATO is pulling the strings, but that could not be further from the truth. The provision of arms by Ukraine’s partners, such as the UK, is often a reactive response to requests for support. I give credit to the British Government and credit to the Secretary of State for Defence and the Ministry of Defence for repeatedly stating that this is Ukraine’s war. Ukraine is our close partner and we are supplying Ukraine with equipment and support, but contrary to Russian propaganda, this is not NATO’s war and there is no sense in which NATO is threatening Russia.

However, we are not in the business of subcontracting policy to the Government in Kyiv. We should not be answering each and every request on this reactive basis. There are times when we should be supplying equipment proactively. For example, the British Government announced they would be supplying Warrior infantry fighting vehicles when asked, though the Liberal Democrats had been calling for this in the months prior to that announcement. We should anticipate requests by Ukraine, rather than wait for them to land. The right hon. Member for Birmingham, Hodge Hill (Liam Byrne) suggested that there is a pattern of saying no until we say yes, but the UK is rightly stepping up its provision at a time when we know that our allies have moved or are ready to move.

[Liam Byrne]

We may as well try to round out the cross-party consensus that I think is emerging. Would the hon. Member agree that we should be doing everything we can to send fast jets to Ukraine?

[Richard Foord]

I suggest to the right hon. Member that if we send fast jets to Ukraine, it is going to be a symbolic gesture. When he and I visited Kyiv last September, Minister Reznikov was asking for Gripen aircraft, as we have heard in this Chamber today. If we are to do so, it would not be because we have a capability that is particularly useful to Ukraine, but because it would be a symbolic first mover gesture that others can follow.

Another example of this is the provision of main battle tanks once we knew that other countries were at least considering or almost ready to provide them, but we must have greater anticipation of what demand will arise before it takes Zelensky to visit us to make such requests.

We have heard that Ukrainian forces are firing up to 5,000 artillery rounds per day. Ukraine’s partners will struggle to maintain supply at that level from our existing stockpiles, and we are going to need to procure artillery rounds quickly. Just-in-time acquisition might play well on spreadsheets, but it has not played well in relation to our inventories.

There are times when matters of supply really are crucial. Britain found itself short of high explosive rounds in 1915. David Lloyd George was appointed the inaugural Minister for Munitions—a position that, when he became Prime Minister, he gave to his fellow Liberal Winston Churchill, who became Minister for Munitions in 1917—and the creation of a Ministry for Munitions indicated just how serious Britain was in prosecuting the war. I am not for a moment suggesting that we need to promote the Minister for Defence Procurement in such a way, but we do need to co-ordinate the purchase of munitions with our allies, given that we are drawing on the same western suppliers in many instances, and we need to do it on an enduring basis.

We see now that Russia is moving increasingly towards a total war footing, where it is increasingly mobilising the resources of its society and its economy to the war effort. It may have sought to play down the so-called special military operation last February, but it is increasingly having to recognise what it has created following the full-scale invasion. The time will eventually arrive for Ukrainian negotiation, and it should come from a position of strength for Ukraine. When the time comes for negotiation, we should be open to the leverage that Beijing will have with Moscow that NATO nations do not.

To illustrate that, recall how the orders were eventually given for the withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo. Yugoslavia conceded when it realised that it was isolated. If we think about the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in the spring and summer of 1999, NATO was bombing military sites across Serbia and Montenegro in pursuit of the withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces. This followed ethnic cleansing that Yugoslav security forces had perpetrated against Kosovo Albanians. The NATO bombing campaign had gone on for more than 10 weeks, but there was no sign that Slobodan Milošević was prepared to concede and to withdraw Yugoslav military and paramilitary personnel from Kosovo.

The NATO enforcement action seemed to be stuck, and NATO bombing sorties were striking the same targets repeatedly. President Yeltsin played an important role in persuading Milošević to withdraw Yugoslav security forces from Kosovo. As Boris Yeltsin’s Balkans envoy, Viktor Chernomyrdin communicated to Milošević that Belgrade could no longer depend on diplomatic support from an ally. Chernomyrdin was later to become a dreadful Russian ambassador to Ukraine, and he is rightly very unpopular in Ukraine, but he was successful in persuading Milošević that he had no ally to whom he could turn for support. Milošević chose to consent to the withdrawal of Yugoslav security forces only when he realised just how isolated he was.

So let us not be too dismissive of China’s offer before we know what it is. Of course, we should pay careful attention to the speech by President Xi coming up on Friday. It will probably be full of platitudes, and it may offer nothing except a ceasefire based on the current possession by Russian forces of Ukrainian land, in which case it would clearly be completely unacceptable. However, the current statements made by China relate to the importance of sovereignty and territorial integrity. We are not there yet, but China may have a role to play in pressuring Russia into its eventual withdrawal from Ukraine.

We would have such a discussion while not being naive about China’s motives. Russia and China have been adversaries, so it might suit China to have Russia and the west depleting their weapons stockpiles in a conflict taking place far away from the Asian Indo-Pacific. However, it does not suit China to have the west threatening consequences against China, as Blinken has warned would result from the supply of arms by China to Russia. Russian people need to know that this is Russia’s war. It is not NATO’s war, nor is it China’s war. We in the UK do need to prepare UK defence now as if this war is our own. We must supply Ukraine so that it can capture more of its territory before it seeks to enter into a ceasefire. At that point, we should be open to recognising the value that Russia’s partners can have in persuading Putin to pull back.

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[Alex Chalk]

My hon. Friend puts the point extremely well and I cannot improve on that. He is right. Today, NATO is stronger than ever. And by the way, it is not just NATO. We should not fall into the trap of assuming it is NATO. What about Australia, which is providing support to Ukrainians? What about the New Zealand troops here in the UK who are helping to train Ukrainians? Let us not give in to that Putinesque rhetoric and narrative. This is the world community coming together. It is a fact, however, that NATO is set to grow, with the accession of Sweden and Finland. The UK alone has sanctioned almost 1,300 individuals and over 130 entities since the start of the invasion. Other countries have acted decisively, too. We have sanctioned the Wagner Group. We have sanctioned Yevgeny Prigozhin. We have sanctioned his family. We have sanctioned Dmitri Utkin. We have sanctioned Arkady Gostev, the director of the federal penitentiary service of the Russian Federation.

[Liam Byrne]

While the Minister is going through his list, would he be good enough to explain to the House why the Americans have sanctioned three times more people associated with the Wagner Group than we have? It is a simple question.

[Alex Chalk]

We have sanctioned the Wagner Group in its entirety, so there really is no place to hide. [Interruption.] Yes, we have. And there is no place to hide for those who aid, abet, counsel or procure the actions of the Wagner Group.

The UK has been amongst the foremost nations supporting Ukraine politically, militarily and with humanitarian assistance. It is worth taking a moment to consider what that support actually involves: over 100,000 rounds of ammunition and 5,000 anti-tank weapons. A point was made about armoured vehicles. The UK has provided over 200 armoured fighting vehicles, including some of the so-called dogs of war that saw service in Afghanistan: the Mastiffs, the Wolfhounds, the Ridgbacks and so on. That is what we have done, to say nothing of the winter weather gear, the Sea King helicopters and 3 million rounds of ammunition. All that we do, and more. We do it so that we send a message that might is not always right, that the international rules-based order stands up and stands for something, and that this country will meet aggression where we find it.

Last month, the Defence Secretary announced we would be sending Challenger 2 tanks and AS90 self-propelled guns. As I indicated, that comes after NLAWs, Javelins, Brimstone missiles, night-vision goggles, medical supplies, winter clothing, and search and rescue helicopters. The training for tank crews has already begun, and our armed forces are putting Ukrainian recruits through their paces in a range of crucial battlefield skills. I will just share this with the House. There are few more poignant sights than flying over the training grounds, with Ukrainian troops beneath, and seeing trenches scarred and etched into those fields of the United Kingdom. That is what this has become: trench warfare in parts of our continent.

In 2022, we trained 10,000 new troops. In 2023, we intend to double that number. As hon. Members will be aware, our armed forces will be training Ukrainian aviators to fly sophisticated NATO-standard fighters in future. We expect to begin training the first Ukrainian pilots in spring. We cannot supply the jet before we have trained the pilot and no time is being wasted in that endeavour. We have committed to match the £2.3 billion of military aid spent last year. We continue to lead the international military and diplomatic effort, too. As we saw with our tank donations, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rayleigh and Wickford (Mr Francois) indicated, our role can be to have a force multiplier effect. We can catalyse the work of other nations. That is why the Prime Minister signed the London declaration with President Zelensky, cementing our unwavering commitment to Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and urging others to do the same.

There is much more I could talk about, but let me just come to this. On Friday, the nation will stand in silence to commemorate a year on from the invasion. As well as His Majesty the King sending his support to Ukraine, over 100 events will take place across Whitehall. This will be an opportunity to remember all those who have lost their lives and all those who have seen their lives irrevocably changed. It will be an opportunity to remember all those who continue to fight for their liberty. It will also be an opportunity to redouble our resolve, ensuring that when the time comes, that proud nation will build back stronger than before. That is why on 21 and 22 June the United Kingdom, jointly with Ukraine, will host the international Ukraine recovery conference.

The signal we are sending to Vladimir Putin could not be clearer. He has turned his country into a pariah and the most sanctioned nation on the planet. Meanwhile, the world stands with Ukraine, ready to support that proud and defiant country to defend its territory and its people. One year on, with Russia gearing up for a new offensive, Putin remains unrepentant. His only coherent war aims are for more war, more death and more suffering. His desperate hope is that the world will lose its nerve. It will not. Together we will defy him. Together we will prove him wrong. As President Zelensky told us in his stirring address to the House two weeks ago:

“We know freedom will win. We know Russia will lose. And we really know that victory will change the world”.

Slava Ukraini, heroyam slava.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the situation in Ukraine.