Ukraine

Lord Callanan Excerpts

Tuesday 25th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I start by expressing my full support for His Majesty’s Government and for the unequivocal stance that they have taken in standing with Ukraine against Russia’s brutal and illegal war. Three years ago, the world watched in horror as Vladimir Putin launched his full-scale invasion. It was an act of aggression, not just against Ukraine but against the very principles of sovereignty, democracy and the rule of law. Today, as we mark three years of heroic Ukrainian resistance, we must recommit ourselves to ensuring that Ukraine not only survives but prevails.

The Foreign Secretary was right to remind the other place of the long history of Russian imperialism and deception. The Kremlin has repeatedly violated international agreements, treating diplomacy as a means of delay rather than resolution, and we cannot allow history to repeat itself. Strength is the only language that Putin understands, and strength is what we must demonstrate.

I am proud that the UK has played a leading role in supporting Ukraine from the very beginning. Under the previous Conservative Government, we were the first European nation to provide lethal aid. We trained tens of thousands of Ukrainian troops, and we led the world in sanctioning Russian assets. That proud legacy of leadership continues under this Government, and I welcome the Prime Minister’s and the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of international support. We were the first mover on vital lethal aid, such as Challenger 2 battle tanks and Storm Shadow missiles, and we brought other countries along with us. We were also one of the very first to provide a cast-iron, multi-billion, multi-year funding pledge for military aid. All of that was the right thing to do, and we stand by it totally.

Let me be clear: there can be no retreat, no wavering and no false compromises. A just peace cannot be dictated by Moscow, nor can it be one that rewards aggression. Ukraine must be the arbiter of its own future. We must ensure that any settlement guarantees its sovereignty, secures its territorial integrity and provides iron-clad security against any future Russian aggression.

To achieve that, we must all accept that we must do more, however politically difficult that will be. The UK has already committed £3 billion annually in military aid for as long as it takes. That commitment is right and necessary and we commend the Government for it, but we must also work with our European allies to ensure that they are stepping up to the plate. Europe must take greater responsibility for its own security, and that includes increasing defence spending and accelerating the provision of military support. We welcome the Government’s announcement of that earlier today.

I wish the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary well on their forthcoming visit to Washington DC. Our transatlantic partnership is vital, and I hope that it will be able to continue. But, like many people, I was profoundly shocked by last night’s UN vote. I never thought I would see, in my lifetime, the United States voting with North Korea, Russia and Iran against its own NATO partners for the first time since 1945. It was profoundly disturbing for all of us who believe in the transatlantic relationship, and it should be a wake-up call for us all. We can only hope that the many sensible voices in the US and Congress can perhaps, at some stage, talk some sense into Trump.

Sanctions remain a crucial tool in this fight. The Government’s latest package, targeting over 100 entities including Russia’s shadow fleet of oil tankers, is a significant step, but I hope the Minister will accept that we can do a lot more. We are buying more Russian fertiliser than we used to buy before the war, and there are still Russian LNG tankers that are unsanctioned and still transporting gas to Europe and elsewhere. We must continue to tighten the economic vice on the Kremlin, ensuring that Putin’s war machine is starved of resources. The Government will have our full support if they choose to do that. Additionally, the UK’s willingness to contribute to Ukraine’s future security, including the potential deployment of British personnel, while a very serious step, sends a powerful message. It demonstrates our long-term commitment to Ukraine’s defence and to the stability of Europe.

At this profoundly disturbing time, the stakes could not be higher. If Putin is allowed to succeed in Ukraine, we all know that he will not stop there. Moldova, the Baltics and beyond will be all at risk, particularly with the current US Administration. Authoritarian regimes around the world are watching. They are calculating what they can get away with. We must make it clear that aggression does not pay, that democracy will not be cowed and that the free world stands united. I commend the Government for their steadfast leadership. This is a time for resolve and not for hesitation, for action and not just for rhetoric. The United Kingdom should never falter, and Ukraine should never stand alone.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, from these Benches I am very happy to associate myself with the noble Lord’s comments with regards to supporting the Government, as we did with the former Government. The noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, who is in his place, will know that I supported the previous Administration’s approach.

The noble Lord closed by referring to the free world being united; it is no fault of any of our political parties that the free world is no longer united, given the Trump Administration. It is a time for us to consider very carefully how we, with our European and other allies around the world who believe in genuine democracy, will support democracy.

It is worth reminding ourselves that the Putin plan was activated in February 2022 with a timeframe of three days. It had been planned that President Zelensky was either to be detained or assassinated. The Verkhovna Rada, the Ukrainian Parliament, was to be attacked and then dissolved and the Ukrainian people to have a puppet regime imposed on them. That was meant to happen in three days. Three years later, the bravery and the fortitude of the Ukrainian people, led by inspiring leaders and enduring a further war winter in terrible physical and psychological danger and stress, should be an inspiration for us all.

The fact that, under unbearable conditions, Ukraine’s democratic and representative functions continue should also be an inspiration for any democracy, not the source of an attack by a leading democracy led by Trump and Musk. The Minister knows that I have supported, since the current Labour Government have been in place, the sanctions and measures that have been introduced, and we will continue to do so. I welcome the sanctions that were announced today, especially those that seek to reduce the dark fleet, as well as the Russian war economy. We have played our part in the cross-party consensus in approving these measures, but we have also sought, in a constructive manner, to ensure that the Russian war economy does not exploit loopholes or circumvent sanctions with trading partners.

We have been able to have unanimity but also frank exchanges in this Parliament, because that is what democratic Parliaments do. We have also sought to raise the need to do more with our trading partners, who have seen an opportunity to profit from the war without contributing to the peace, be it Dubai or Delhi, seeking more investment from the former without penalty for financing the Kremlin, or, in the latter case, seeking conditionality in trade deal talks that we are now opening up again with India, potentially offering market access and energy to those who are purchasing energy from the Kremlin. We have to be frank with our allies that we have standards in both our trade and our diplomacy, and therefore we want to see that reflected in our agreements with them.

It is also why we have sought to continue the pressure not just for utilising the resource from assets that have been frozen but to seize them. We have debated this in this Chamber before, and the Minister has heard my comments on it. What has happened now with the Trump Administration, and in the vote in the Security Council, and Trump seeking to blackmail Zelensky over mineral rights, is that, frankly, any Russian assets that are seized should now be immobilised against being used by the Putin regime as part of some form of reward for doing a deal which excludes the Ukrainian people. There should be no moveable assets to reward this. There should be no impunity for this aggression, and therefore we should be using the capital of the assets for the benefit of the Ukrainian people.

I agree that we must counter a foreign policy based on lies, as the Statement says. The worry, with the vote in the UN Security Council, is that, increasingly, it is hard to disaggregate the lies and falsehoods from our strongest ally, not necessarily just from our strategic adversary in the Kremlin. As the Polish Foreign Minister put it, the new world is one where we now are seeing the reputation not just of the Trump Administration being put in question, but America as a whole. Given that our relationship with America is so important to our national security and diplomacy, this has to be something of consideration.

Therefore, I close by making the point that the debate we held in this House under my noble friend Lady Northover about the need to protect the rules-based international order was prescient. This is now an urgent matter for the United Kingdom. When it comes to the decision of the Trump Administration to demolish USAID and destroy the reputation of America, the UK response should have been filling the gap, seeing a strategic opportunity for us to expand our soft power and have a debate which means that our national security is one where we keep our people safe but we build up coalitions around the world, we prevent conflict and we work to remove the incentives for conflict, which could be hunger and migration.

The response to what is happening in America is for us to expand our international development, not to cut it by a bigger margin than the previous Government. This is sending the worst signal at the worst time about where the United Kingdom stands. We all support the increase of our national security defence expenditure. It should not be funded on the backs of the most vulnerable in the world, when, ultimately, for our security at home we are seeking to have coalitions abroad. I hope the Government will reconsider.