Ukraine

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 22nd September 2022 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Tiverton and Honiton) (LD)]

The Ukrainian, Leon Trotsky, said:

“You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”

Leon Trotsky was previously a resident of Mykolaiv and Odessa. This phrase, uttered by Trotsky the communist revolutionary, has proven quite accurate for many people living in those parts of Ukraine in 2022.

The Liberal Democrats must add to the chorus of condemnation in relation to Putin’s nuclear threats. President Joe Biden said, on the eve of the February invasion:

“We have no intention of fighting Russia.”

As Ukrainian courage and willingness to resist Russia’s occupation have grown, so has NATO’s willingness to supply materiel to Ukraine and so have Ukrainian ambitions grown in terms of how much of their country can be de-occupied.

Putin claimed yesterday that, at the Istanbul talks in March this year, Ukraine’s representatives gave positive responses to Russia’s proposals. Putin claimed that a

“peaceful settlement obviously did not suit the West, which is why, after certain compromises were coordinated, Kyiv was ordered to wreck all these agreements.”

We in the UK should state plainly that Kyiv’s war aims are for Kyiv to formulate, independent of its friends and allies in the west.

Some have said that, without NATO, Ukraine would not prosper militarily in the way that Ukraine appears to be doing, and that we in the west need to determine our own end state, our own strategy, and then influence the Ukrainians. I would counter that we must make it plain to Putin and the wider world that it is the Ukrainian Government who are making all the decisions.

We need to be straightforward about the fallacy of Putin’s narrative that Kyiv is “receiving orders” from western advisers, as he puts it.

Putin said yesterday:

“Some irresponsible Western politicians are doing more than just speak about their plans to organize the delivery of long-range offensive weapons to Ukraine…Washington, London and Brussels are openly encouraging Kiev to move the hostilities to our territory.”

I suggest that it would be simple for the Minister to correct that misinformation and to state that London has offered our allies in Kyiv no encouragement to strike Russia within its own borders. Rather, we should expose Putin’s rhetoric by stating categorically that the UK’s multiple-launch rocket system is supplied on condition that it is not used to strike anything within Russia’s internationally recognised borders.

It was mentioned earlier that some of us on the all-party parliamentary group on Ukraine were hosted last week in Kyiv by Yalta European Strategy. I joined that APPG visit and, like the hon. Members for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) and for Isle of Wight (Bob Seely), I was interviewed on Ukrainian television. I offered viewers of Priamyi TV reassurance that the change in the UK of both the Head of State and the Prime Minister within just a few days would not disrupt the support the UK gives to Ukraine.

Political parties across this House have united in opposition to Putin’s brutal and illegal war of conquest. The Liberal Democrats will back the steps necessary to ensure that the light of freedom and democracy continues to burn in Kyiv. It was striking last week to look into the eyes of counterpart MPs from the Ukrainian Parliament, the Rada. Like others on the Ukraine APPG, I was struck by how fiercely independent those parliamentarians we met are—they would be unwilling to take orders from anyone, be it Russia, Europe or anywhere else.

Some Members of this House may not be interested in war. Given that war risks being, as Trotsky said, interested in us, I urge those colleagues who do have some bearing on the situation to stand firm in the face of aggression and threats. Then we should hope that Ukraine shows magnanimity in its dealings with Russia, so that it may bring this sorry episode to a close.