Ukraine

Lord Bilimoria Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bilimoria (CB)]

My Lords, I was president of the CBI when the Ukraine war started after Russia illegally invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022. On the Monday after the war started, I went to see the ambassador, Vadym Prystaiko, at the Ukrainian embassy to offer the help of British industry. It was then that I learned from the horse’s mouth that Ukraine was going to fight. Putin thought that, in the same way as the Taliban walked into Afghanistan after our withdrawal and the Afghan army capitulated, he would be able to walk into Kyiv and take over the whole of Ukraine. As the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, said in his excellent maiden speech, this war actually started a decade ago, when Russia took over Crimea in 2014.

I come to blunder number two by Putin. The week after the invasion, I was scheduled to address the EU ambassadors at their regular meeting at the EU embassy, just across the road in Smith Square. During my speech, I looked at the ambassadors from Finland and Sweden. I asked them, “Are you now ready to join NATO?” They said, “Within five minutes”. Sure enough, Finland and Sweden have now joined NATO—two formidable defence powers, with Finland able to muster hundreds of thousands of trained troops within weeks and having a far longer border with Russia than Ukraine does, at 1,400 km. Both countries are also formidable defence manufacturing powers, as the noble Lord, Lord Spellar, said, when it comes to rifles, artillery and aircraft.

Here we are, almost three years into a war of attrition with Putin not giving up. In his excellent opening speech, the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, spoke of the 675,000 Russian casualties. Russia has lost 3,400 tanks and 8,500 armoured vehicles, while 26 vessels in the Black Sea have been either destroyed or damaged. Tragically, among Ukraine’s civilians and troops, thousands of lives have been lost. I do not whether noble Lords are aware of this but there are 80,000 amputees in Ukraine as a result of this awful war. Young lives—indeed, whole families—are being ruined.

Putin is making another blunder. He is worried about Ukraine joining NATO. At the 2024 Washington summit, allies stated that they will continue to support Ukraine on its irreversible path to NATO membership. Look at Australia. It is thousands of miles away but has pledged to supply 49 surplus M-1A1 Abrams tanks to the Ukrainian war effort. This could not have come at a better time, because the 47th Mechanized Brigade, the Ukrainian army’s sole user of American-made M-1s, is running out of tanks.

The noble Lord, Lord Robathan, is absolutely right. We cannot go about supporting Ukraine in a half-hearted way. We are all united. Every party in this House and every independent Peer—we are all united in defending and supporting Ukraine. However, I fear that we are doing it half-heartedly. We should be going all out. I ask the Minister: what about the planes? No one has mentioned planes. When President Zelensky came here, he said, “Give me wings”. We have given those wings. When are they going to be used? Are we going to be able to use weaponry in Russian territory?

As the noble Lord, Lord Coaker, mentioned in his opening speech, the UK has approved a military loan of £2.26 billion for Ukraine, using profits from frozen Russian assets. This is excellent news. In the summer, the leaders of the G7 countries agreed to cream off the profits from around €280 billion of Russian sovereign assets that have been frozen. This is the sort of thing that we need to be doing. Of course, Russia must pay for the 470,000 damage cases registered in Ukraine and the trillions of dollars-worth of damage that it has caused.

Everything hinges on what happens in America in a few days’ time. Are we prepared for what might happen on 5 November and who might win that election? Republican support in the US for Ukraine seems to have waned. Will it continue if we have a Trump presidency? There is also a growing relationship between Russia, Iran and North Korea. China, which continues to exploit Russia’s weakened position, is using that for its own strategic interests.

Of course, we must not forget the £457 million of humanitarian aid that we have given to Ukraine. The UN has been useless recently. It has been totally ineffective, except in helping to get the grain to flow out of Odessa. The noble Baroness, Lady Smith, mentioned India, which will be the largest economy in the world by 2060. Are we working with India to try to resolve these conflicts? India is an ally of ours. Are we working with and talking to it?

I conclude with this—I am a stuck record. In 2019, on the 70th anniversary of NATO, I said that we should spend 3% of our GDP on defence. We need to do that now more than ever. As the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, said in a previous debate and in his excellent speech today, we have a shrinking and hollowing-out of our Armed Forces. As the noble Lord, Lord West, said, money is the elephant in the room. I keep saying this: the price of freedom is not free. We must save Ukraine and help it to win this war.