Peter Bone
Main Page: Peter Bone (Independent - Wellingborough)Department Debates - View all Peter Bone's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(10 years, 5 months ago)
Commons ChamberThe hon. Lady is right that we have been due to agree to sign a military and technical co-operation agreement with Russia in the near future. Clearly, in the current situation the chances of our doing that are rather reduced, to put it mildly, but we have not made a formal decision about that. We are certainly reviewing that, and we will decide about it in conjunction with any other measures we choose to adopt.
Russia may well be trying to repeat in Crimea what it has been allowed to do in Moldova. Why should the Russians fear that the international community will act differently from how it acted over Moldova?
My hon. Friend is right that, as I have said in answer to earlier questions, there are parallels with Transnistria, and, indeed, with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which are part of Georgia. Russia has certainly been able to live with any consequences of those actions in the past. This is a repetition of that, but on an even greater scale, so there must be costs and consequences in response, to deter the repetition of such events in future.