EU and Russia (EUC Report)

Lord Lamont of Lerwick Excerpts

Tuesday 24th March 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick (Con)]

My Lords, as a member of Sub-Committee C, I join with colleagues in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, for his great skill as a chairman and his patience in guiding us to our conclusions. It was not always easy as there was a certain amount of division in the committee. I also pay tribute to our policy advisers, Sarah Jones and Roshani Palamakumbura, and our adviser Sam Greene.

I join in the general condemnation of Russia’s and Mr Putin’s actions. He runs a paranoid regime, where his opponents are imprisoned and critics harassed or worse. The annexation of Crimea was illegal and an explicit denial of Russia’s promise to respect its neighbour’s territorial integrity. It is obvious, too, that Mr Putin, in exchanges, has not acknowledged or told the truth about his country’s involvement in eastern Ukraine. However, having said that, the actions of a state—even an authoritarian state—are rarely the consequences of one person, and, in the few minutes that I have, I would like to explore precisely why Russia has reacted as it has done.

Lord Salisbury, the great Victorian Prime Minister, once remarked that the first evil in diplomacy was war and the second evil was an obvious diplomatic triumph. He presumably meant that the latter often sows the seeds of the former. People often quote Mr Putin’s remark that the dissolution of the Soviet Union was the greatest disaster of the 20th century, as though that in itself was a sinister observation. I suspect that many people in Russia share that sentiment, not because of any great attachment to communism but because of the economic pain and the chaos that followed.

Robert Gates, the US Defence Secretary under George W Bush and also under President Obama, said:

“When Russia was weak in the 1990s and beyond, we did not take Russian interests seriously. We did a poor job of seeing the world from their point of view, and of managing the relationship for the long term”.

While we were taking evidence in our committee, we heard much argument over whether assurances were or were not given to Russia in the past about the expansion of NATO. Sir Rodric Braithwaite, the former UK ambassador to Russia, was quite emphatic that such assurances were given. He provided the dates and the names of the people who were present, including himself, and said that these assurances were confirmed in Foreign Office documents. Whether these assurances were given or whether a different interpretation can now be placed on them because circumstances have changed, it is clear that the Russians were deeply unnerved by the expansion of NATO.

This was not a view expressed only by President Putin: it goes back to President Yeltsin, who, in 1995, at the time of NATO’s bombing of Serbia said:

“This is the first sign of what could happen when NATO comes right up to the Russian Federation’s borders … The flame of war could burst out across the whole of Europe”.

In 2008, President Putin warned that including Ukraine or Georgia in NATO membership, as had been proposed at a summit in Bucharest, would be perceived as a direct threat to Russia.

Extraordinarily and ironically, George Kennan, the US diplomat and the architect of western containment of the Soviet Union, expressed his anxiety in 2008 after the first round of NATO expansion. He said:

“I think the Russians will gradually react quite adversely, and it will affect their policies … I think it is a tragic mistake. There was no reason for this whatsoever. No one was threatening anybody else”.

We may regard NATO as a defensive alliance, but it was originally aimed against Russia. Security can be a zero-sum game: one person’s security is another person’s insecurity.

Perhaps we do not sufficiently appreciate what a big decision it was when Russia allowed Ukraine to declare its independence. Russia was giving up a territory with which it had the most profound emotional and spiritual links, going back 1,000 years to the time when Kiev was the first Orthodox capital of the country.

We in the West and in the EU say that we do not recognise spheres of influence. Does this really accord with history and the realities of the world today? Try telling that to Cuba, Venezuela, Nicaragua or Bolivia. For Russia, of course, EU associate arrangements were the stepping stone to full EU membership, which it saw in many cases as leading to full NATO membership.

When we were taking evidence, we heard plenty of criticism of the EU’s handling of the proposed association agreement and comprehensive free trade agreement with Ukraine. Insufficient consideration appears to have been given by the Commission to the tension between the free trade agreement and Mr Putin’s proposed Eurasian Customs Union. Some officials who appeared before us admitted that almost no thought had been given to Russia and the effect on the Russian economy, and that there had been little contact with Russia even though the impact on the Russian economy was potentially considerable.

We may not like Moscow’s position, but it is not difficult to understand the logic. Ukraine is a huge expanse of flat land that Napoleon and the Nazis crossed in order to invade Russia. Ukraine is seen by Russia as a buffer state of enormous strategic importance. After President Yanukovych was removed, proposals were put forward in the Ukrainian Parliament to cancel the Russian lease on the naval base in Crimea. Russia would have lost access to the warm waters of the Mediterranean, and it allowed President Putin to speculate about having a western base in Crimea.

We all know about Winston Churchill’s speech in 1939 about Russia being a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. However, he also said:

“It cannot be in accordance with the interests of the safety of Russia that”,

the West,

“should plant itself on the shores of the Black Sea”.

Churchill would have understood Russian fears—even if they were illusions—about its base in Crimea.

I have concentrated on viewing the situation from a Russian point of view because it needs doing. However, we have to deal with the situation as it is: to understand is not to forgive. I support the imposition of sanctions. I agree that if there is not further progress, sanctions should be increased. I agree that we should stand by our Article 5 commitments. It is important that Minsk 2 should be upheld. This applies to Mr Putin and, equally, to Mr Poroshenko and the Government in Kiev. They should not be allowed to add new conditions to the agreement.

There are other things that we should be doing and encouraging. First, we need to consider devolution—even asymmetric devolution—within Ukraine. Secondly, we need to fashion an economic rescue plan for the country, funded jointly by the EU, the IMF, Russia and the United States. Lastly, and most importantly, the West should agree to Ukraine as a buffer between NATO and Russia, akin to Austria’s position in the Cold War. We should publicly rule out NATO expansion to include either Georgia or Ukraine.

We need a prosperous Ukraine—one that cannot be presented as a threat to Russia and one that will allow the West to repair its relationship with Moscow. We need Russia for many different issues and it is in all our interests to find a solution that enables us once again to have a better relationship with Russia and end this tragic situation.