Ukraine

Lord Browne of Ladyton Excerpts

Thursday 9th February 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Browne of Ladyton (Lab)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Neville-Jones. I agree with her and the noble Baroness, Lady Jones, that it is essential that we plan for the longer term. I believe that in Euro-Atlantic security—strategic stability in the space between Vancouver and Vladivostok—now is always the time to plan for the longer term. In the past I have been critical of people not thinking in those terms. To some degree that may have contributed to where we find ourselves today.

It was a privilege to hear the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. I congratulate him on an excellent and characteristically robust speech. It was informed, wise and delivered exceptionally well. I think the best I can say for him is that in that speech, and otherwise, he has earned and deserves the ear of your Lordships’ House.

I find myself for the second time in a few weeks embarrassed and apologetic to be in a position where I know that, as I am contributing to a debate on a Thursday afternoon, it is improbable that I will be here for the winding up if I hope to get home today to Scotland. Today it is a function of the addition, at relatively short notice, of important business to the list. It is also a function of the increasing unpredictability and lack of capacity of the transport systems to Scotland. I know I am not the only Scot in your Lordships’ House today who is suffering to some degree because of this. In any event, I explained my problem to the Whips’ Office, my own Whips and both Front Benches. I am immensely grateful for the generous way in which they responded.

As the US State Department, among many others, predicted, winter has brought with it a relatively static front in eastern Ukraine along lines largely unchanged since that extraordinary Ukrainian counteroffensive in September. However, we must guard against complacency, and many speeches have echoed that. Troop movements over the last few days indicate that Putin is moving his planned spring offensives forward and we must expect an intensification of fighting in pretty short order. If the WhatsApp from the friend of the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, proves to be correct, that order may be shorter than many of us expected. Although the front is relatively static for the moment, we must ensure that this does not result in any abatement of focus from the NATO powers.

This debate gives us a welcome opportunity to remind ourselves of the ongoing consequences of Russia’s unprovoked aggression. Russian forces continue to occupy more than 100,000 square kilometres of Ukraine, around 15% of its total territory. Fierce fighting continues in Bakhmut and elsewhere, and civilians continue to die on a daily basis. On 14 January a missile struck an apartment building in Dnipro, killing at least 46 people. It was deliberately targeted there. On 29 January at least one civilian was killed in strikes on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, which has been under constant attack since the invasion began. On 1 February a Russian missile killed at least three people in Kramatorsk, a city in the Donetsk region.

Noble Lords will recall the profound trauma this nation experienced on 7/7, when 52 people lost their lives to co-ordinated and malign terrorist activity. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights estimates that more than 7,000 Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian activity since February last year, with many more thousands seriously wounded. That is equivalent to 134 7/7s, with no end in sight. It is a daily experience for the people of Ukraine.

Human Rights Watch reminded us:

“Russian war crimes began literally from day one”.


Russian cluster munitions hit a hospital and a preschool on 24 February last year, the first day of the invasion. The European media director of Human Rights Watch asserted last week:

“Russia has committed more atrocities than all the human rights groups in all the world could ever have the capacity to investigate.”


I make these points as a reminder that the front line becoming static does not in any way mean that the horrors of conflict have begun to dissipate. Civilian lives, and those of soldiers, are still being lost every day. That fact should act as a constant spur to action, ensuring that we continue to give Ukrainian forces what they need so that they, in turn, can continue their efforts to repel Russian aggression.

I will also mention the situation of Russian conscripts. In many cases, they are young men who have no desire to threaten Ukraine and are being compelled to enlist for service through a mixture of intimidation, avowedly prescriptive legal pressures and crude propaganda. They are Putin’s victims too, as are their families and loved ones.

What of the broader strategic picture? Last week Putin reached into his quiver of bizarrely inapt historical parallels and compared the Russian offensive in eastern Ukraine with the Battle of Stalingrad. It is evident that his faltering offensives, undertaken without provocation, bear about as much similarity with the Soviet Union’s heroic rearguard action as they do with the battles of Jutland or Thermopylae. But his recourse to historical parallels, however tenuous, usually tells us something about his intentions, as it does in this case. Noble Lords will recall the essay he produced in 2021 entitled “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians”. Academically, it was valueless and reminiscent of the work of David Irving in issuing a miasma of pseudo-scholarship to conceal its central immorality. But it made plain his ambitions, including his belief that Ukraine and Belarus have no right to exist and his desire to reshape Eurasia accordingly. What might his evocation of Stalingrad tell us? Coupled with his stated desire to broaden the parameters for the next wave of conscription, it may suggest that he is preparing the ground for an attritional conflict and that he is preparing the Russian nation’s psyche for the reality of a lengthy struggle, costing thousands of lives, to be pursued even where progress is minimal or non-existent.

In a previous debate in your Lordships’ House on this subject, I echoed all the wise senior military officers I have met in my engagement in these issues, two of whom have already spoken in the debate. I said:

“In modern warfare, there is no such thing as a conflict that can be won by purely military means. The best that combat can offer is to fashion a context within which an acceptable settlement can be reached.”—[Official Report, 1/12/22; col. 1956.]


When we are asked to justify our support for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine, I believe an answer is that we, together with NATO allies, are determined to allow him the scope to shape a context within which this conflict can be ended on terms that are equitable for Ukraine and on a scale commensurate with its sacrifice. We know that ultimately there will have to be a set of terms to which both Ukraine and Russia will be prepared to accede if this conflict is to end. The timetable and context of those negotiations is a matter for President Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. But our military and humanitarian support gives them the opportunity to resist the use of unprovoked brutality and to avoid the necessity of chafing under the terms of a Russian-dictated peace, with all the risks of revanchist violence that would engender.

Even as the military challenges continue, we must not fail to consider the different but enormous challenges we will face in assisting Ukraine to rebuild. Figures from Transparency International’s Corruption Perception Index show that endemic problems with corruption remain, with Ukraine ranking 122nd out of 180 countries. President Zelensky’s recent dismissal of his deputy infrastructure Minister and a number of regional officials shows that he is aware of this problem and its implications for the efficacy of military and humanitarian support today and for the post-conflict reconstruction process.

In thinking about how our support can be directed where it will do the most good for the people of Ukraine and the most harm to Russian intentions, it would be useful to consider the example of the US, which last month sent its own auditors to Ukraine for just that purpose.

We all want this conflict to end as swiftly as possible, and in terms that reduce the risk of further aggression. I believe that continuing our military and humanitarian support and intensifying it where necessary is the course of action most likely to achieve those aims.