Ukraine

Lord Grenfell Excerpts

Tuesday 4th March 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warsi]

I fully endorse the incredibly wise and perceptive comments of my noble friend.

[Lord Grenfell (Lab)]

My Lords, I sometimes think that we are living in a bit of a dream world here. If anybody listened to President Putin’s press conference late this morning, as I did, they would have been left in absolutely no doubt whatever that he is unimpressed by all the threats that are being made against him. He may not in his heart of hearts believe that, but that is what he is saying. He is not impressed by sanctions, or by this or that with which we are threatening him. Is it not the truth that, as the noble Lord, Lord King, has said, Ukraine, and Crimea in particular, are extremely important to him and to Russia? He is not about to give in easily on this.

Would it not be far better if we stopped constantly saying that territorial integrity must be maintained when we know that it is very likely that it will not be, and that the solution will probably be that President Putin will get a lot of what he wants? In the end, Ukraine cannot exist if a part of that nation is in constant turmoil and being threatened by Russia. It would be far better, in my view, if an arrangement was reached whereby Crimea went back into the Russian Federation. Although there would still be problems in eastern Ukraine, you might then possibly have a united Ukraine which was capable of looking after its own affairs without further fear of Russia.

[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?