Ukraine

Lord Anderson of Swansea Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

The noble Lord makes important points. It was exactly these sensitivities to which I referred in answering the Question on Thursday and, indeed, in the Statement today. We recognise and understand those sensitivities, and the emotional connection to which my noble friend Lord King has referred between Russia and Crimea and Ukraine. However, we must also not forget that a sovereign nation has been violated, and this cannot be the way in which we conduct international affairs. Simply to stand by and say that we recognise the emotional connection and the history of the relationship between Russia and Ukraine, and must therefore to some extent accept and stand back from this situation, would not be the right approach. As my noble friend said earlier, there are territorial disputes all around the world. What kind of a signal would we therefore be sending?

[Lord Anderson of Swansea (Lab)]

My Lords, is it not true that Russia also has emotional connections with other parts of its former empire, including Armenia and Georgia? One cannot rely on that. The sad reality may be, alas, that Crimea may already be in the course of being lost to Ukraine, and that all we can do is try to ensure that eastern Ukraine does not follow the same path—by, for example, ensuring that adequate guarantees of freedom, language and so on are given to the Russian-speaking inhabitants of that region.

Can the Minister indicate a little more about what sanctions, asset freezes and smart sanctions we have in mind? In terms of institutions, if there is no adequate response from Russia in respect of the pressures which we exert, are we considering, for example, seeking the suspension of Russia from the Council of Europe in the same way that the Conservative group yesterday withdrew from the European Democratic Group, where they sit with their Russian colleagues? What about the OSCE? What about the G7/G8? What consideration, if any, has been given to the UK taking the lead in calling for the suspension of Russia from these various international organisations?

[Baroness Warsi]

I hope that the noble Lord will forgive me if I do not go into a huge amount of detail at this stage. I will simply say that all options, whether diplomatic or economic, are on the table at this stage. However, as noble Lords will understand from today’s debate if not from anything else, those actions have to be collective. Those collective discussions and options have to be discussed in the right fora, of which the Heads of Government meeting on Thursday is one. Therefore we may return to this matter, possibly next week.