Ukraine: Update

Lord Adonis Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

I agree with the noble Lord that the wilful disinformation and misinformation engaged in by Russia is absolutely appalling and very unwelcome. It is worth emphasising that it remains the case that the UK respects the people, culture and history of Russia. The conflict in Ukraine has confirmed the UK assessment as set out in the integrated review: that the current Russian Government remain, and will continue to pose, the most acute threat to the UK and the alliance for the foreseeable future. Our criticism and objections are directed to the behaviour of the Russian Government.

However, the noble Lord makes an important point. The UK, and particularly the MoD, made a courageous decision fairly early on to release more intelligence to the public. That was quite a culture change for the MoD; we are usually pretty protective of our intelligence information. We decided to do that to counter Russian disinformation by providing an accurate and truthful picture of Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. To date, those intelligence updates, issued via social media, have proved very popular; they are reaching a large audience across the UK and internationally. There was some reference recently to a poll carried out in Russia—I was trying to find the specific information, but I do not seem to have it in my brief. My recollection is that the poll indicated that, in Russia, there has been a sharp decline in support for the war over a period of months. It seems that many people are becoming very unhappy and very questioning about what the Russian Government are doing in their name. We will continue to do what we can with the careful release of intelligence—the noble Lord is absolutely right—to neutralise lies and to provide a counternarrative which is correct.

[Lord Adonis (Lab)]

My Lords, the Ukrainian Prime Minister has said that the Ukrainians need and could deploy more than 100 tanks. We are providing 14 Challenger 2 tanks. The Minister said that there are 227. Could we not do rather better than 14?

[Baroness Goldie (Con)]

As I said earlier, the issue is not just what we as an individual country can do. We are providing Challenger, and the weaponry and ammunition accompanying it, to work with the American Bradley vehicles. That is a tandem capability. I indicated earlier that other countries are providing tanks as well. The question is where the need arises and the best way of addressing it. The Challenger 2 is obviously a very formidable piece of equipment, and it has a remarkable reputation for withstanding damage—in the current battlefield in Ukraine, that is a very important component. It is not a question of any one particular vehicle being what is needed universally; it is a question of thinking intelligently about how we ally with other bits of equipment and capabilities that allies and partners are producing to ensure that, in aggregate, we have something really effective.