Ukraine (UK Relations with Russia)

Roger Gale Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Whittingdale]

I will come on to what we need to do to respond to the Russian intervention. To some extent, I agree with my hon. Friend that we need political reform, but it should not only be about the two regions in Donbas. If he will forgive me, I will continue my current theme but I promise I will come back to that.

I want to talk not only about the fighting that is taking place in Ukraine, but about the massive abuse of human rights. We have Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe observers in eastern Ukraine, but confidence that they can monitor to the desirable extent is limited. I have heard criticism that they have been unable to carry out proper monitoring of the situation.

There has been a massive population displacement, from both Crimea and Donbas—something like 1.5 million people have been displaced, and that may well be an underestimate. Hostages have been taken. Nadiya Savchenko, the Ukrainian servicewoman who was elected to the Ukrainian Parliament, is being held in Russia. Wearing my other hat as Chairman of the Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, I should mention that we are conscious that Oleg Sentsov, a distinguished Ukrainian film director, was abducted and is being held in Moscow. With my hon. Friend the Member for North Thanet (Sir Roger Gale), I attended a conference last week of the Council of Europe to discuss media freedom and the importance of the protection of journalists. We heard about two journalists who are being held hostage. There have also been a number of casualties among journalists.

If we listen to and watch Russian media, we get a completely different picture. There is no account of that whatever. The Russian propaganda machine is insistent that the Kiev Government are a bunch of fascist gangsters who have been imposed on the population. The Russians make regular claims of abuses by Ukrainian troops, and often produce photographs of bodies—it later becomes apparent that the photographs were taken during other conflicts many years ago.

Perhaps the most outrageous Russian media manipulation took place after the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines MH17. There was overwhelming evidence, which is now widely recognised throughout the western world, that the airliner was shot down by Russian separatists using a surface-to-air missile that they had managed to obtain. Despite that, Russian media initially told us that the aircraft had been shot down by the Ukrainians, because the Ukrainians had mistaken it for President Putin’s plane and were trying to shoot him down. Another claim was that the incident was a plot dreamt up by the west, which had flown an airliner full of dead bodies over Ukraine that could then be brought down to discredit the Russian separatists. Even this week, pictures have been produced in Russian media claiming to show a jet fighter that shot the plane down.

Despite the fact that those pictures were obviously faked, the concern is that a huge number of people believed the story. A substantial proportion of the Russian population—the majority—are convinced it is true. I therefore welcome the Prime Minister’s recognition of the importance of countering that propaganda, which he gave me when I raised the matter with him after the statement on the G20. He said that President Obama had also recognised the need to counter Russian propaganda. I welcome the launch in this country of Ukraine Today, an English-language channel that will try to set out events accurately. I hope we and the Ukrainians do what we can to increase our efforts to get out the truth of what is happening. I welcome the intention of the new Ukrainian Government to set up a national public service broadcaster, which they have suggested could be modelled on the principle of the BBC.

What do we need to do to put pressure on Russia, and make it clear that its behaviour is unacceptable and that there must be penalties? Sanctions were first imposed after the annexation of Crimea and there has been a gradual escalation since then. Many people say that sanctions are pointless and have no effect, but they clearly are having a significant effect on the Russian economy. There has been a sharp downward revision in its prospects for growth, and they have affected the Russian currency and the Russian stock market. In my view, we need to do more. I would like to see a strengthening of sanctions. I recognise that that requires international agreement. The Minister and the Prime Minister have been at the forefront in pressing for the strongest response from the international community, but I have been alarmed by reports that some have been suggesting that perhaps we can now begin to relax sanctions. I hope the Minister can reassure me that we will make the case as strongly as possible that there is no justification to relaxing sanctions. If the current destabilisation continues, there may even be a case for strengthening sanctions still further.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

In January, the Russian delegation to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe will seek the reinstatement of its voting rights and the renewal of its credentials. There is a grave danger that some countries in the Council of Europe—possibly Germany, France or Greece—may vote to restore those rights. Is this not absolutely the wrong time to send the signal that what has been done by Russia is actually all right and there is no need for further sanctions?

[Mr Whittingdale]

I completely agree with my hon. Friend. I have not always been the biggest fan of the European convention on human rights, for other reasons. Nevertheless, membership of the Council of Europe requires one to subscribe to the basic conditions of human rights. Russia is so far outside meeting those standards that it would be wholly ridiculous to suggest that we should now reinstate its voting rights in the Council.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Roger Gale]

I rise to intervene at the risk of infuriating you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I hope it will be taken on board that my hon. Friend has been extremely generous in giving way.

It is not just Mayor Klitschko’s Kiev that will need help through the winter, but the whole of Ukraine. If the present and only legitimate Government are to survive, do we not need to move immediately to give whatever support we can to help the Government survive through the winter and into the new year?

[Mr Whittingdale]

The challenges of the next few months, through the winter, are substantial, but hopefully the prospects will improve if they can get through it. I was encouraged yesterday that Vitali Klitschko seemed to think they were well placed to resist the problems of severe winter weather, but obviously it will be a challenge.

The real key to the future of Ukraine—this is the message we hear from every Ukrainian—is that there has to be serious reform and it has to take place quickly. It is essential that measures are put in place to prevent corruption, to make changes to political institutions and also to bring about devolution. My hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis) talked about semi-autonomous status; I would not go that far, but it is certainly desirable to devolve power and give greater responsibility to all the regions of Ukraine and to more local institutions.

I am encouraged in that I think the new Government under President Poroshenko and Prime Minister Yatsenyuk are determined to make the changes and they have brought in as Ministers people with real expertise, some of whom have come from different countries. We have an American-born Ukrainian Finance Minister and there is an Estonian in the Government. That, I think, sends the message that wherever the expertise lies, the Government will take advantage of it.

Perhaps even more encouraging were the recent elections to the Ukrainian Parliament in October. The Russians made out that that would lead to extremists coming in. Indeed, they even tried to announce that extremists had been elected, but when the results came out, they showed that Svoboda, the right-wing party that had been in the previous Ukrainian Parliament, did not meet the threshold, achieving only 4.7%; while the Communists achieved only 3.9%. What was elected was a coalition of three parties, which are all now western-leading, pro-European and working together.

Perhaps most encouraging of all—I am coming to the end, Madam Deputy Speaker—is the fact that the new Ukrainian Parliament includes a number of young people who have come out of civil society and academia. Such people said to me that they previously never thought it worth getting involved in politics because the whole system was corrupt. Now they have chosen to stand for election and they are determined to take forward the reform programme. Let me mention two of them for a specific reason: Svitlana Zalishchuk and Aleksei Ryabchyn. They are young Ukrainians who have been elected, and they are also John Smith fellows, and I want to pay tribute to the work of the John Smith fellowship—not just in Ukraine, but in a number of east European countries, where it is helping to give young, up-and-coming politicians the experience and the opportunity they need through the fellowship. It is now paying off, in that those people are being elected to help govern their country.

I believe that we have a duty to try to help Ukraine in its political, constitutional and economic reform programme, and I very much hope that we will soon be able to ratify the European Union association agreement. Ten countries in Europe have already done so, and I hope the Minister will be able to say something about that. We have an obligation because we are signatories of the Budapest memorandum, which Ukrainians still feel strongly gives us an obligation to assist—not necessarily militarily, but at the very least to give all the help we can.

As was said earlier, Ukraine is in the front line, but it does not stop there. President Putin talks repeatedly about “Novorossiya”, which extends the border to Moldova, Georgia and the Baltics. We know that Ukraine is where the test is at the moment, but what happens there will have huge implications for global security. That is why I am grateful for the opportunity to speak in this debate, and I look forward to hearing both Front-Bench team responses in due course.