Ukraine

Lord Dannatt Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Dannatt (CB)]

My Lords, I join the near-universal condemnation of current operations by Russia against Ukraine. Frankly, the return of violent war in Europe is an obscenity, and a return to state-on-state war is not acceptable in the 21st century. Putin and Putin’s Russia must pay the price for what they are currently carrying out. However, many of us will have seen that many Russians do not support what President Putin is doing. They see this as Putin’s war and the Kremlin’s war; it is not their fight and we need to recognise that.

In condemning what the Russians are doing, I commend the Ukrainians for the spirit with which they are resisting. They may be outgunned and out-tanked, but they are certainly not out-spirited, and we need to support that spirit. Our response must be unified, intense and sustained. The unity of the West is one of our strongest weapons. The sanctions being mooted must be the widest and deepest imaginable and, moreover, the isolation of Russia from all international fora must be complete. All this must be sustained for the long term.

If Putin’s operational aim is to effect regime change in Kyiv in order to bring Ukraine into the wider Russian sphere, I suggest that our strategic aim should be regime change in Moscow to bring Russia back into the family of civilised nations. Closer to home, I welcomed last year’s announcement by the Government of an increase in defence spending, but the quantum of that remains insufficient and the balance within it remains incorrect. Our land warfare capability has become a shadow of our other capabilities. Frankly, we need to see an investment in our main battle tanks, in our infantry fighting vehicles, our artillery and our air defence. We may aspire to put an armoured division into the field, but we cannot: at the most, we might be able to field a weak armoured brigade. That is completely unacceptable.

Theodore Roosevelt, speaking about international relations, said:

“Speak softly and carry a big stick”.


With regard to Ukraine, we have been speaking softly, but I ask: where is our big stick?