National Security and Russia

Paul Masterton Excerpts

Monday 26th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Masterton (East Renfrewshire) (Con)]

The disgraceful chemical attack in Salisbury—which I believe is a slightly longer train ride from East Renfrewshire than from Taunton Deane—is a particularly shocking example of the Russian Government’s habit of acting without respect for national borders or international rules and norms.

Russia has acted in this way for a long time, growing bolder, escalating, and interfering further and further beyond its own borders. The threat that it poses to our national security can be seen in its treatment of its neighbours. In both the Yeltsin and the Putin eras, Russia has interfered in those countries with impunity. It is now nearly 10 years since its aggression against Georgia in 2008, when it illicitly invaded Georgian territory and launched a full-scale occupation of two so-called breakaway republics. That led to the expulsion of ethnic Georgians from parts of their own country. However, the interference and aggression go back much further. In the early 1990s, it was Russia that interfered in Georgia and helped to establish those false republics in the first place, and that led to the ethnic cleansing of Georgians in the separatist-controlled areas.

According to a census conducted by the separatists, just 46,000 Georgians remained in the Abkhazia region in 2011, more than 80% fewer than in 1989. In South Ossetia, there has been a reduction of more than 85% since 1989. Houses belonging to ethnic Georgians in the Russian-occupied areas have been razed to the ground. The ethnic Georgians who have remained in those areas have been denied access to education in their native language, denied freedom of movement within the rest of Georgia, forced to change their names and ethnic identity and compelled to register as “foreigners” in their own land. The Russians’ objective is clear: to dramatically change the demographics of those regions by force, to reduce and remove the Georgian population and to undermine the status of the regions as integral parts of Georgia.

Georgians are a proudly independent people who want to be free in their own country and to make their own way in the world without being controlled by Moscow. The Georgian Centre in Scotland, which is based in Glasgow, helps to support the small but vibrant Georgian population, promoting their unique culture and their history and intertwining their new lives in Scotland with their roots.

Successive Russian regimes have sought to suppress Georgia’s right as a sovereign state to rule its own territory and pursue a pro-western, pro-NATO policy. When, 10 years ago, Georgia’s Government sought to move against ceasefire-breaking separatists, Russia seized its opportunity. It occupied the areas claimed by the separatists and, temporarily, several towns and cities beyond those lines. It recognised, and established military bases in, the separatist republics, which remain rightly unrecognised by the United Kingdom Government and by the overwhelming majority of the international community.

Since then, the separatist republics have become more and more integrated with Russia. Both republics are wholly reliant on Russia for trade and financial support. Their so-called militaries are supplied by Russia and have even been partially merged into the Russian armed forces. The people who still live there largely use Russian passports as a result of illegal and forceful mass passportisation. On 18 March, the Russian presidential elections were held in the occupied territories, and 33 polling stations were illegally opened. The Georgian embassy in the United Kingdom said:

“With such actions the Russian Federation fully disregards the UN Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, and blatantly violates the fundamental norms and principles of international law”.

Let us be under no illusions. Russia is occupying sovereign Georgian territory, just as it is occupying sovereign Ukrainian territory in Crimea and Donbass.

While I am glad that the United Kingdom, like most of the world, has criticised Russia for its actions in Georgia, it has not, as far as I am aware, formally recognised them as an occupation, and it should do so tonight. We should vocally and forcefully oppose what is happening in Georgia as strongly as we oppose Russia’s occupation of parts of Ukraine. Ten years on from the aggression that intensified this occupation, we must redouble our support for Georgia, its independence and its territorial integrity. We cannot allow this issue to slip down the international agenda and let Putin off the hook. We must demand human rights for all people, especially ethnic Georgians, in the Russian-occupied areas, and that includes access to those areas for international human rights monitors, which is currently being systematically denied. The territories that are being occupied by Russia are integral parts of Georgia, and they should be returned to Georgia.

Putin’s disrespect for international norms does not stop a certain distance from Russia’s borders. The Salisbury attack, and all his attempts to interfere in the west, come from the same mindset as the occupation of Georgia, and we ignore that at our peril. If we are to stand up to Putin, stand up for peace, freedom and international norms, and stand up for ourselves and the security of our nation, we must also stand up for Georgia and for all victims of Russian expansionism.