Nia Griffith
Main Page: Nia Griffith (Labour - Llanelli)Department Debates - View all Nia Griffith's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(12 months ago)
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Mr Wallace
NATO has done a lot of work—not only from February last year when the invasion started—to ensure that it is ready and to use that readiness to deter Russia on NATO’s borders. That is incredibly important. To date, we have not seen any deliberate strikes into a NATO country by Russia. While we have seen deeply provocative events in the Black sea, Russia has so far been respecting those NATO borders.
The most important thing is to ensure that President Putin realises he cannot win this war in Ukraine. His brutality is having the opposite effect—it has driven two new nations into NATO—and the west, including the United Kingdom and Germany, as I saw in an announcement, is stepping up more and more to ensure that Ukraine has success on the battlefield so that it can negotiate, if it wishes, from a position of strength.
Dame Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)
We on the Opposition side stand firmly behind and support Ukraine. However, Ukraine is depleting our military stockpiles, and the Government seem to be acting too slowly to replenish them. What progress has the Secretary Of State made on a stockpile strategy? What talks has he had with NATO allies about their replenishment plans to ensure the most effective sequencing of replenishment?
Mr Wallace
The hon. Lady makes an important point that is common not just to the United Kingdom but across Europe. Ukraine has woken everyone up to issues such as ammunition stocks. The first challenge was to wake up that supply chain. Many of the orders we had placed were filled, and the supply chain went on to do something else. We have now placed orders for new NLAWs. Let us remember the anti-tank weapons and new anti-aircraft missiles from Thales in Northern Ireland in conjunction with our Swedish and, I think, Finnish colleagues. We are in the process of, hopefully, awarding a contract to replenish 155 mm shells. At the same time, I have worked across the international community to make sure that we stimulate those supply chains and to make sure that Ukraine does, as well.