Russia

Lord Judd Excerpts

Monday 29th January 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Judd (Lab)]

My Lords, as I watch the horror of the Russian bombs in Syria and the refusal of the Russians to see the counterproductivity of what is happening—they are boasting about victory when there is no victory at all in the battle for hearts and minds, and the cost of what they are doing is yet to be seen by mankind across the world—my mind goes back to the time when I was rapporteur to the Council of Europe on the conflict in Chechnya. During the conflict I visited Chechnya nine times, and I was in Russia 12 times in connection with it. I was one of the first, with a small group, to arrive in Grozny after the bombardment. I shall never forget that experience. A group of good friends from the Council of Europe, we were stunned and silent for the best part of an hour as we looked at what confronted us. It was a ghost city, bombed to smithereens, and it seemed that any building still standing would have to be demolished before rebuilding and reoccupation could begin. Following that came the experience of the disappearances, torture and oppression, and barbarity—the absolutely indiscriminate attacks on communities and families because it was alleged that people had done things against the Russians.

I was one of those who, after the fall of communism, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the rest, had high hopes that we could see something special emerge in Russia. It has been a profound disappointment that that did not happen. I agree with those who say that we must not lose sight of the importance of dialogue because we must not give up on that hope. There are wonderful people in Russia, and exciting things could still happen. But we must be realists about the barbarity. I personally knew Anna Politkovskaya and Natalya Estemirova, and I had been at a meeting with Colonel Litvinenko, and I saw what happened to them. But it is not just about what happened to them but about what happened to countless ordinary people in Chechnya and Russia itself. We must be realists—it is a ruthless regime. Quite apart from anything else, we were extraordinarily decent about it, but I smart at the thought that the murderers who brutally murdered the former KGB colonel trailed radioactivity around our capital city with apparent impunity. They have never been brought to trial. We must face up to what Russia is in reality, but we must also look at the Russian people as a whole and see that, in the end, we must build peace and reconciliation with them. We must not just slip back into a Cold War mentality, which would be fatal.

However, counterproductivity is the issue. We are dealing with a situation across the world about how we win hearts and minds, which is as important and vital in our own stand against terrorism as it is with Russia itself. It is too easy to slip into a counterproductive position in which we in fact encourage the extremists of tomorrow.