Ukraine

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Thursday 11th May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Wallace]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for his and his party’s support. He knows as well as anyone that we are all determined to see this through. I think that this has been an exemplary example of Parliament at its best over the 440 or 450 days of the Russian invasion. I will get straight to the point and try to answer as many of his questions as I can.

On limitations, obviously we will not talk in public about whether there are limitations. The key here is to give Ukraine that capability to defend itself. What I can say is that, throughout this process, we always make sure that we gift having first examined, minimising escalation and unnecessary provocation of the Russian state—that is not the business we are in; we are in the business of helping Ukraine to defend itself within its sovereign territory. Of course, it is easy to forget that none of this would be needed—no deep-strike capability would be needed—if Russia withdrew its forces to the other side of the border and back into Russia. Every Russian force would be safe after that. Of course, that is why we are seeking deep fire within Ukraine, for example: because Russia has invaded so far into another country.

On integration with the plane, Storm Shadow is an air-fired missile. The right hon. Gentleman is correct, of course, that it is not easy to take a British-French missile and incorporate it with a former Soviet or Russian aircraft. That is one of the reasons for the time taken: working out whether it was technically feasible. I pay tribute to our scientists and technicians, who have done an amazing job—and not just with this type of capability —as well as to other scientists across Europe who have managed to produce integration of western weapons into Russian equipment, and innovative capabilities, at speed. I often question why I cannot have that speed when I try to commission some of those capabilities domestically, so there are lessons there. That is one of the areas.

I am not sure that there are many other powers with similar weapons systems providing similar support. There is, however, a drive by many allies to deliver further deep capability. HIMARS is obviously 80 to 90 km, but another American system that was gifted a few months ago—forgive me; I cannot remember its name—has a longer range.

One of our requirements in the second round of the international fund is the ability to do deep fire—deep strike. This took a long time partly because of technical feasibility, since putting a fifth or fourth-generation weapons system on what is sometimes a second or third-generation aircraft is not easy. We will see. I am not going to comment on when we expect these to be used. They have yet to be tested, and we will find out in the next few weeks or months the extent to which that has worked, but it takes time.

As I have always reassured the House, I wanted to calibrate our response. We need to make sure that we do these things in a way that helps Ukraine further its capabilities. Gifting these earlier when we were unsure whether they would necessarily work, without any form of offensive on the horizon, may have made them vulnerable and may not have made the difference that we are all trying to achieve. All I can say is that, having technically cleared the hurdles, and as everyone talks about an expected counter-offence, now is the right time to gift these to Ukraine, and they are now going into or are in the country.

No one should doubt any of our momentum here. Yes, the media come and go and cover different aspects of the world, and Sudan comes along, but if we look at the Government’s track record—Operation Interflex, which trained 9,000 last year and will train 20,000 this year around the United Kingdom, or the gifting of tanks at the beginning of the year—we see that our momentum continues.

On the right hon. Gentleman’s question about what has gone into the country, I know that all our tanks have gone into the country, as well as many of our Spartans and armoured vehicles. I do not know whether every single one has, and I am happy to write to him, but the big ones such as the tanks are all in country. They have trained and exercised both here and in Ukraine, and I know that the Ukrainian forces using them so far have enjoyed them very much and talk very highly of the Challengers. That also goes for the AS 90s, which have not only been put in but used. They seem to get excellent availability on the AS 90, so there are lessons to be learned for our capability.

On the Wagner Group designation, proscribing an organisation is a matter for the Home Office, done via collective write-round. I cannot comment on when or how those things happen. We have heard the calls from both sides of the House to proscribe it. The Wagner Group is a thoroughly nasty organisation, from not only what we see in Ukraine but what we have seen in west Africa and Syria, and does pose a threat to the United Kingdom and her allies, either directly or indirectly. It is a group that needs dealing with, although Mr Prigozhin seems to be making himself deeply unpopular with the leadership in the Kremlin at the moment—if I was him, I would not stand near any open windows if I was dealing with Mr Putin. Nevertheless, Wagner is here and we have to deal with it.

On the regional plans, I am trying—they are over 3,000 pages long and are written in NATO-speak, which probably makes them the equivalent of 12,000 pages long when we try to decipher them. It is important that we try to make commitments that meet those plans and also support others if they do not have that capability, because the strength of NATO will be whether it can carry its political determination into a military plan that makes a difference and deters—that is what we are really about—Russia or any other aggressor. There are a few more weeks and months to go, but I am wading my way through the 3,000 pages, and after this statement I am heading off to the Army on Salisbury plain to discuss exactly that.

[Mr Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth East) (Con)]

I very much welcome this statement. I recently returned from Ukraine, and there is massive appreciation for what Britain has been doing and continues to do—not just the lethal aid provided by the Government but the humanitarian support gifted from the British people. There is huge anticipation about the counter-attack that is likely to take place, but there is also a message, as I hope the Secretary of State will agree, that it may require a second, third, or fourth counter-offensive to take place. This is not going to end simply when the Ukrainians decide to push forward. We should expect Russia to go ugly and to use unconventional systems in response.

I welcome the announcement on Storm Shadow. Britain is yet again stepping forward. Are the Americans going to match with ATACMS—the army tactical missile system? There is still a request for jets to be gifted as well. Finally, Trump last night refused to say that he wanted Ukraine to win. This is a material factor, because he could win the United States election next year, and that might be what Putin is banking on.

[Mr Wallace]

My right hon. Friend’s characterisation of the counter-offensives is correct. I do not think it is a case of “One last thrust and everything will be over by Christmas.” I think this is a matter of Ukraine quite rightly finding and exploiting, as any good general would, weaknesses and opportunities. We should always manage our expectations that it will all be over by Christmas. When we have a Russian army that does not mind sacrificing hundreds of thousands of its own people, we are not up against rational leadership that recognises, as anyone else would do, that the game is up already. Having lost 10,000 armoured vehicles, and with over 250,000 of its own soldiers dead or wounded, most people would have recognised that the game is up. That is one of the big challenges.

There are other weapons systems that Ukraine has asked for, and the ATACMS is a well-documented capability. We are pretty confident that Storm Shadow will plug some of that gap and definitely deliver the deeper range that HIMARS used to achieve when it was at 80 km. The Russians, after suffering significant losses to HIMARS, obviously worked out and moved beyond range ring, so we think Storm Shadow will absolutely help the Ukrainians make that difference.

The US President today is President Biden. I have a good relationship with him, as do the Government. They have stood firm, with $87 billion of donations. They have put their money where their mouth is. A huge amount of effort has gone into their support. I lived in America for a few years, or my parents did, and I know that the decent and good people of America would recognise that their rights are just as important as those of the people of Ukraine. Their constitution upholds rights. I think that is what will unite them, and I am confident that whoever comes next as President will continue to support the battle to uphold human rights.