Ukraine

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Friday 25th October 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, this has been a difficult year for Ukraine, with a shortage of weapons and personnel hampering its efforts to deal with the grinding war of attrition that Russia is pursuing, but we should not assume that all the pressures are on the Ukrainian side. The appearance of North Korean soldiers in the conflict and the widening of the pool of prisoners from which Russia seeks to recruit soldiers for the front line underscore the difficulties that Putin is facing. The FCDO says that these difficulties will reach crisis proportions by the end of 2025 and beginning of 2026. The question is how Ukraine is to stay in the fight until then. For Ukraine to stay in the fight, Europe—and ideally the United States—must stay in the fight. In both regions, however, there are signs of growing war-weariness and a desire to end the conflict, whatever it takes. This would be a disastrous mistake. To illustrate the point, let me explore the logical consequences of some kind of near-term settlement.

First, what would be the instrument through which such a settlement would be given effect? Presumably it would be in the form of an international agreement signed by both sides, but we have been there before and have seen only too clearly how little Putin regards or respects such agreements. The moment he feels they constrain his ambitions, he casts them aside without a second thought. Any piece of paper to which he puts his name would have about as much value as the one that Neville Chamberlain waved in front of the cameras at Heston aerodrome in 1938. In fact, neither side would be satisfied with an outcome that left the other in control of part of Ukraine. Putin would simply pursue his assault on his neighbour by undercover means, while the Ukrainians would do the same in an effort to regain their lost territory, until open fighting eventually broke out again—unless there was some kind of security guarantee involving the employment of western military power in the event of a breach of the agreement. That would involve a far greater risk of direct conflict between Russia and NATO than currently exists and is therefore unlikely to be acceptable. In that event, a near-term agreement would not end the conflict at all.

Then we must consider the effect on nuclear proliferation. Whatever we might say, many would see the failure of resolve in the West as the result, at least in part, of Putin’s nuclear sabre-rattling. The message to potential aggressors would be, “Attain or retain nuclear weapons and no one will dare to stand up to you”. There is also another side to the coin. Many already regard Ukraine’s agreement in 1994 to transfer the nuclear weapons on its soil to Russia as a catastrophic mistake. Some will no doubt reflect on this and decide that they need their own nuclear deterrent, not just against other nuclear powers but against potential aggressors more widely. This could be the final nail in the coffin of counterproliferation efforts.

The impact goes beyond nuclear weapons, though. Lithuania has already voted to withdraw from the 2008 Convention on Cluster Munitions and other Baltic states are considering whether to follow this lead. This highlights the stresses within NATO and the EU that would follow any decision to make concessions to Russia. The Baltic states and Poland already—and rightly, in my view—feel threatened. Their concerns would be greatly multiplied should Russia’s aggression be seen to have succeeded even partly. If that success was as a consequence of a lack of resolve on the part of some of their western partners, they might begin to wonder where their best interests lie. RUSI has already suggested that Russian success could spell the end of NATO, at least in its present form. Nothing would delight Putin more.

More widely, Russia would certainly insist that any settlement included a restoration of its dominant position in the northern Black Sea and would very likely use this to render untenable Ukrainian grain exports through that route. Since February 2022, Ukrainian grain provision to Europe has increased from less than 2% to 50% of total exports. Meanwhile, Russia is providing grain to African nations that were supplied by Ukraine prior to the war. It is targeting those nations where it calculates that it can gain strategic influence. Its increasing use of food as a political tool will serve only to spread Russia’s malign influence more widely.

There are many other severely damaging consequences of even a limited Russian success, but time does not permit me to go into them today. I do not aim to convince either the Minister or the Government—I do not doubt their resolve—but European leaders need to do a much better job of explaining to their citizens the dire consequences that would attend a failure of nerve over Ukraine. Negotiating from a position of relative weakness would not bring an end to the conflict. It would carry huge nuclear risks, create fissures within western Europe, weaken deterrence and make a wider war more rather than less likely. It would leave our children and grandchildren a fearful legacy for which they would surely and rightly condemn us.