Ukraine

Lord Stirrup Excerpts

Friday 31st October 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Stirrup (CB)]

My Lords, it is extraordinarily difficult for most people in this country to get an accurate feel for what is really happening in Ukraine. Where are we after three and a half years of intense combat? All estimates of territorial gains and casualties must of course be treated with caution, as there are no completely reliable or definitive sources, but conservative judgment suggests that the Russian offensive of 2025 netted something like an additional 0.4% of Ukrainian territory. Average Russian daily advances in sectors such as Kharkiv have been smaller than those that the British Army achieved at the Battle of the Somme in 1916, and they have taken no objectives of strategic significance—although Pokrovsk now seems to be under serious threat. All of this at a cost of just under, or perhaps well over, 100,000 Russian dead. Total Russian casualties since March 2022 probably now number around 1 million. The number of dead is likely to be approaching a quarter of a million and, importantly, more than 5,000 officers have been killed, a significant proportion of whom were the lieutenants and captains who provide the critical tactical leadership in a Russian army that lacks a strong non-commissioned officer cadre.

It is just as hard to estimate Ukrainian losses, but military deaths since March 2022 may come close to 100,000. This is significantly fewer than the number of Russian casualties, but of course the Ukrainian population is commensurately smaller. I have not so far mentioned civilian deaths, the damage caused by indiscriminate attacks on civilian infrastructure, the kidnapping of Ukrainian children and the vast quantity of Russian military equipment that has so far been destroyed. The sum total of devastation and human misery is appalling, and it is little surprise that people want it to end.

I focus on the horrific statistics of the war because they carry another, different message: even if there is a ceasefire at or around the then existing battlefield positions, it will not be peace. Peace occurs when there is a political settlement that gives both sides sufficient stake in maintaining the post-conflict status quo rather than seeking to overturn it. That will not be the case with such a ceasefire. Ukraine cannot in the long term accept the loss of a significant part of its territory and citizens as a consequence of the naked aggression that has killed so many of its people and devastated the country. Putin will not accept a situation that so signally fails to achieve his strategic objective at such a horrendous cost.

At the least, the war would for a time move back into the grey zone. We will be faced with the modern equivalent of the inner German border of the Cold War running across Ukraine, with armed camps on either side. The Russians will certainly not demilitarise, and the inward investment so necessary to the reconstruction of Ukraine will not be made if there is inadequate capacity there to deter or defend against further Russian aggression. More widely, Russia’s attempts to destabilise and undermine NATO will continue, and it will rearm as rapidly as possible in order to threaten western security and attempt to isolate Ukraine. We will at best have an armed pause, not peace.

Meanwhile, the events of the past few years will have driven another nail into the coffin of nuclear non-proliferation, if they have not already sounded its death knell. Which state in possession of nuclear weapons would now be mad enough to give them up, having seen how the international community has treated the deal that Ukraine struck in Budapest in 1994? We must be clear-eyed about the likely future. It will be perilous. It will require strength and resolution if we are to avoid, or at least contain, the dangers it poses. NATO must continue to rebuild its deterrent posture. Members of the alliance, including the UK, must match their rhetoric on defence with the commensurate investment—and that investment must be made urgently, not at some indeterminate point in the future, which seems to be the current plan of His Majesty’s Government.

Those who advocate a rapid negotiated end to the fighting must recognise that it would not be the end of the war. Those who imagine that it would mean a return to business as usual must understand that the long-term context for European strategy has fundamentally changed because of the events of 2022. Facing the consequences squarely will be difficult and expensive; failing to do so would be catastrophic.