Ukraine

Lord Pickles Excerpts

Tuesday 1st November 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, who leads Russia is ultimately a matter for the Russian people, but what is clear, and should be very clear to Mr Putin when he looks across the international stage and sees who supports him and who voted with Russia—Nicaragua, Belarus, and I believe that North Korea has supported Russia on occasions—is that a person is judged by their friends; Mr Putin does not have many friends left.

[Lord Pickles (Con)]

My Lords, in order to get a compliant population in territory that the Russians occupy, the Kremlin is operating a policy that it describes as “filtration”, which involves the forcible kidnapping, deportation and dispersal of Ukrainian citizens, in a clear breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Last month, the United States State Department estimated that this involved many thousands of Ukrainian citizens. Does my noble friend have an up-to-date estimate of the numbers involved? Will he ensure that the plight of those kidnapped people, involving many thousands of children, is not forgotten?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on my noble friend’s second question, I assure him that the United Kingdom will continue to work with key partners in making the case for those most vulnerable and most innocent, and indeed those being imposed on in this way and taken away from their families. I will write to him on the numbers.