My Lords, we hold this debate against the sombre and shocking images emerging from Syria and Turkey of the devastating earthquake which has visited such tragedy and suffering on these two countries. I know the thoughts of us all are with the families and citizens who are affected by and in shock from this horrendous catastrophe. That is a horrific consequence of the destructive power of nature, so it is an incredibly cruel irony that we see tragedy and devastation in Ukraine not from the force of nature but because a human being made an avoidable decision to inflict that horror on an innocent sovereign country.
Almost a year ago, President Putin launched his illegal invasion of Ukraine, which was a move that shook the whole world. Putin imagined that Ukraine would fall within a matter of days, but the Russian army completely failed to anticipate how proud, determined and brave would be the reaction from the forces of Ukraine which ferociously resisted Putin’s troops on every axis. We have now reached day 351 of the conflict. The Kremlin’s attack has cost Russia the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers, not to mention a vast quantity of tanks, armoured vehicles, jets and one prized flagship.
Ukraine has retaken more than 50% of the territory lost in the initial chaos of the Russian advance. A merry-go-round of Russian generals have come and gone, replaced with monotonous regularity. Most recently, General Surovikin has been replaced by General Gerasimov, who is derided by some of his own countrymen as the “Plywood Marshal”. Throughout it all, the Kremlin—aided by Iran’s kamikaze drones—has kept up a relentless, cynical and despicable bombardment directed against civilian infrastructure. Thousands of innocent civilians have died in botched, indiscriminate attacks, adding to the charge sheet of the litany of alleged war crimes.
Take last Wednesday evening—2 February—when an Iskander-K tactical ballistic missile slammed into an apartment block, killing three and wounding many more. Separately, in the past few days, we have heard a former Russian military officer admit that Russian troops have indeed tortured Ukrainian prisoners of war, claiming that at one site in southern Ukraine,
“the interrogations, the torture, continued for about a week”.
That is utterly appalling.
Yet despite laying waste to vast swathes of Ukraine and imposing unnecessary suffering on much of the population, Russia has still failed to accomplish any of its strategic aims. In recent weeks, Russia has trumpeted several tactical advances. In mid-January, Ukrainian forces withdrew from the small Donbas salt-mine town of Soledar: the first notable settlement Russia has gained since early July last year. But this was a pyrrhic victory achieved at enormous cost and resulting in several thousand casualties. Human wave attacks were deployed to secure a ruined town inhabited by just 500 people. It underlines the Kremlin’s callous attitude to dehumanise not only its opponents but its own troops, who are quite simply regarded by the Kremlin as dispensable cannon fodder. In recent days, a force of Russian naval infantry further south has also been attempting to make gains near the central Donetsk Oblast town of Vuhledar, south-west of Donetsk city. It is another case of Groundhog Day. Russia makes creeping gains but simply lacks the capability to achieve its strategic goals.
My Lords—just to pick up that last point—I thought that yesterday’s visit of President Zelensky was a remarkable parliamentary occasion, echoing the leadership that this country showed in World War II, particularly the leadership of Winston Churchill. In that setting, I am very much looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. Standing in his fatigues next to Mr Speaker and the Lord Speaker, President Zelensky’s message was clear: “Do not forget Ukraine or this war in Europe.” As the Lord Speaker said in his thanks to the President, leadership is about visibility, and the President has not been afraid to stand with his people and be where they have suffered most: in the front line.
On the point about visibility, it was also important for the world to see Sir Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak presenting a united front in their determination to help Ukraine defeat Vladimir Putin. Both reaffirmed to President Zelensky their support for Ukraine and expressed sympathy for the horrors suffered by the Ukrainian people. This war must end with Putin’s defeat and Ukraine’s freedom secured.
As the Minister reminded us, this month represents the first anniversary of Putin’s barbaric and illegal invasion of Ukraine, which has resulted in immeasurable suffering. Britain is united in its support for Ukraine, and the Government will always have our full backing to provide military, economic, diplomatic and humanitarian assistance as it defends itself. However, we also want to see support in the long term, and a move from ad hoc announcements to more systematic assistance. This means setting aside individual announcements, and instead setting out a clear strategy, in partnership with our allies and Ukraine.
Putin’s recent shift to attack civilian infrastructure shows that he has no regard for the rules of military conflict, and it also means that the war is unlikely to conclude in the immediate future. While the UK’s crisis response to Ukraine has been undoubtedly strong—and the Government deserve credit for this—we now need to look towards the future as well. It is on this basis that the Government should consider proposals for a 2023 action plan, encompassing military, economic and diplomatic support. This must include a strategy to ensure a sustained stream of future supplies, and efforts to urgently ramp up our own industry; but it should also encourage our allies to do more. I hope that the Minister will be able to respond positively about the intention to publish such a plan.
My Lords, I am grateful for the opportunity to have a full debate on this issue. I welcome the comprehensive introduction from the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie. I also look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, with his experience as a former MoD Minister; he will contribute greatly to this House and to this specific debate.
Last year, I watched the full expansion of the 2014 aggression into the invasion of Ukraine from a hotel room in Baghdad, before I flew to Beirut. I knew then what we all know now: that this unwarranted and illegal aggression by Russia against an independent sovereign state would have significant consequences far beyond the borders of Ukraine itself. The horror inflicted on the people of Ukraine—according to the UN Human Rights Office, it has so far claimed 438 children’s lives, among more than 7,000 civilian deaths; and of course, we know that women have been disproportionately affected by this aggression—has been compounded by Putin weaponising grain and food, thereby exacerbating famine in the Horn of Africa, where 5 million children are currently dangerously malnourished, an issue we debated earlier this week. His venally amoral use of the Wagner Group of mercenaries to deploy intimidation, rape and torture across a wider arc in Africa is even worse.
According to the Norwegian chief of defence, Ukrainian losses are probably over 100,000 dead or wounded in defending their country, and for Russia an astonishing 180,000 dead or wounded soldiers, many of whom we know were lied to and misled about what they were fighting for. A year on, today, a Ukrainian MP friend of mine from our sister party, President Zelensky’s party, WhatsApped me a message:
“We have just got information that Russia has started a new attack. It is a hell there.”
It is, and President Zelensky’s extraordinary address to us yesterday captured the totality of the consequences of what I believe will be a failed attempt by Putin to occupy a nation and subjugate its people. Putin wants to be a neo-Russian emperor. He has convinced himself that a Russian empire can only exist with Kievan Rus’ within it. However, he has miscalculated strategically and misunderstood the people of Ukraine to an extraordinary degree.
My Lords, I too look forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. While it is his first in this Chamber, it is but his latest contribution to an already long and distinguished parliamentary career.
We are about to reach the ninth anniversary of Russia’s war in Ukraine and the first anniversary of the latest and most violent phase of the conflict, during which the total casualties have run into the hundreds of thousands—a butcher’s bill that will only grow, and grow rapidly, over the coming months. As this reality continues to unfold and the suffering of the Ukrainian people mounts, the question I hear most frequently is: how and when will it end? The answer, of course, is that nobody knows. Just about all wars begin and end in politics, and this one is no different. Eventually, there will have to be a political conclusion, but that appears to be a long way off and it does not imply, as some seem to believe, the appeasement of Russia.
In thinking about what it might imply for the near term, it is worth taking a step back and reflecting on broader strategic objectives. The Ukrainians are clear about theirs: the full restoration of their country’s pre-2014 borders, including the recovery of Crimea. The Russians’ position today is less certain. Their initial objective was undoubtedly the removal of the Ukrainian Government and their replacement by a regime friendly to, if not under the control of, the Kremlin. Whether events of the past year have changed this calculus is open to debate, but I doubt it.
Putin is certainly aware that making progress towards his original objective is a lot harder and taking far longer than he had imagined, but there is no reason to suppose that he has given up on it. To the contrary, there is much evidence to suggest that he is doubling down on his original intent.
As far as the UK is concerned, our strategic objective must be to ensure that Putin’s aggression is widely perceived to have failed; that such illegal assaults on the international order are seen as not just very costly but unlikely to succeed. But I believe we should go further. As I observed last week, in conjunction with the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, Russia’s war in Ukraine is being spearheaded by the Wagner organisation—a group that has at the heart of its activities terror, torture, murder, rape and all other forms of brutality. A supposedly civilised world should not countenance the existence of such a force, and we should seek to eliminate its presence from the wider international scene.
My Lords, it is rather humbling to follow the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup. I also welcome my noble friend Lord Soames and look forward to his maiden speech.
As everybody has said, after 12 months of conflict, death, destruction and huge suffering, everybody is wondering how long this war will last and how it will end. At the beginning of the war, no one believed that Ukraine could outlast the might of Russia. President Biden even offered Zelensky and his Government exile in the United States. Zelensky’s famous refusal,
“I need ammunition, not a ride”,
and the amazing resilience and courage of the Ukrainian people that followed, stunned the West. Helping Zelensky contain Russia’s aggression soon turned into a proxy war for the West.
Since then, as we heard earlier, the West has provided a massive amount of military and economic support. With Germany’s recent agreement to release the Leopard 2 tanks, more than 300 heavy tanks will be delivered to Ukraine by European countries, while the USA will provide 31 Abrams tanks. Yesterday our Prime Minister announced that Britain could also provide fighter jets and train Ukrainian pilots.
Unsurprisingly, Zelensky and the West believe that Ukraine can win the war outright. But Putin too believes that he can win the war outright. He has shown no sign of intending to stop the war, scaling down his demands or looking for a way out, let alone making serious proposals for peace. For Putin, this is a crusade. He and his siloviki—men of force, mostly ex-KGB—are in an existential struggle against the West. For Putin, as much as for them, it is a matter of life and death. There is no chance to back down now and, if Putin goes, they too lose everything. Their only interest is to keep their wealth, and they are too afraid to raise their voices and criticise Putin anyway.
My Lords, it is good to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Meyer, who has worked hard as the Prime Minister’s envoy on Ukraine. It is also good to look forward to the maiden contribution of the noble Lord, Lord Soames, who is not only an old colleague and friend but a former Minister for the Armed Forces, with a distinguished record that was only enhanced by him being denied the Conservative whip in the House of Commons before he came here.
The most famous expert on strategy during the Second World War was Sir Basil Liddell Hart, who once wisely said:
“The profoundest truth of war is that the issue of battle is usually decided in the minds of the opposing commanders, not in the bodies of their men.”
Therefore, the question for us is: given that Vladimir Putin, in his own mind, made the decision to invade Ukraine, ignoring the advice of his military experts and recklessly misreading the intelligence on the resistance of the Ukrainians, can we change his mind? I believe that we can and that we must do just that. Getting into the mind of someone like President Putin is not easy, even for me who dealt with him personally 20 years ago in what now seems to be another universe. But I offer to the House some recent examples of the kind of mind shifts among authoritarians that might just give us an indication of where we could go in the future.
The first example is the decision of President Xi of China only a few weeks ago to abandon overnight the draconian lockdown policy on Covid. Even an authoritarian in a country such as China will watch public opinion closely, and he could see that the ground was moving—and fast. My second example was less than a week ago. Ayatollah Ali Khamenei of Iran, a notably repressive regime, decided without notice to release thousands of prisoners who had defied the law on headdress. Even the Supreme Leader could see that the ground was moving against the regime. With women’s demonstrations escalating all the time, the mind of the commander was changed as a consequence. My third example was the exit by the Soviet Union in February 1989 from its disastrous invasion and intervention in Afghanistan. In the Kremlin, they understood that they were losing the war, the casualty list was producing a massive backlash among mothers and it was costing an already troubled economy a substantial amount of money. So, without any off-ramp being offered, no face-saving formula being available, they ordered their troops simply to come home. My fourth example to the House is 4 June 1989, when Solidarity was elected the Government in Poland. On that day, there were 55,000 Soviet troops in Poland but the Soviet Politburo ordered them to stay in their barracks. It could see the writing on the wall, that the ground internationally was moving and that its mind had to change—and it did so.
My Lords, I start with a couple of declarations of interest. I am one of the elected vice-presidents of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, and I work very closely with our five sister parties in Ukraine. I am also a former trustee of UNICEF UK, and I am vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Fire Safety and Rescue.
It is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen. His decades of experience and strategic view have given us a hopeful speech about changing mindsets. The House should be grateful for that. The only issue I have is that one other factor is beginning to emerge, which is the Russian people themselves. However downtrodden they are, however much protesters are imprisoned, however much Navalny and his Anti-Corruption Foundation and our sister party Yabloko do what they can in a country where it is almost impossible to speak up, it is now becoming clear that the Russian people are concerned about the number of deaths and beginning to understand that things are not as Putin has told them. Let us hope that that continues to grow as well.
I look forward to hearing the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames. I had the honour of meeting his mother on a number of occasions over 30 years at Churchill College. It is delightful to welcome yet another Soames into your Lordships’ House.
I will focus on the extraordinary cross-party political co-operation, not just in the UK and Ukraine but in many parts of the western world that have come together to try to turn the tide on Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. I will illustrate that with one example, that of removing landmines. I will also focus on Ukrainian children abducted and forcibly adopted by Russia.
But first, I echo the points my noble friend Lord Purvis of Tweed made. Our Ukrainian friends are extremely keen that the UK looks at Russian assets, not just those of oligarchs and individuals who are in power but those of the nation itself. I gather that £58 billion of central Russian assets are held in London. We need to go beyond targeting just individuals because at some point, I hope very soon, we will have to find the resources to help Ukraine rebuild. It and the West should not pay for that; the aggressor should pay.
My Lords, it is a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness, Lady Brinton, who brings great focus to a number of very important issues concerning the Ukrainian scene. I also look forward with warm anticipation to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Soames.
I wonder if President Putin ever heard about the principles of war before he launched his special operation. Most important of these principles is:
“Selection and maintenance of the aim”.
His aim was clear: to make all Ukraine again part of Mother Russia. He had established to his satisfaction that China would be supportive, while many in the third world might see his special operation as no part of their business. Eastern Europe is a far-off land and for some—for example, South Africa—a developing friendship with Russia was important.
Probably, there was also an expectation that Russia would soon succeed, as it had with Crimea. Then, after diplomatic tantrums, apoplectic condemnations and some more useless sanctions, Russia’s conquest would become accepted—in which case, why side with others against Russia? Almost 50 countries either abstained or did not choose to vote on the United Nations Assembly motion seeking to condemn Russia’s aggression. In some parts of the world, criticism of Russia is thus more nuanced—sympathetic, even—in spite of that totally unlawful behaviour, as indeed outlined by the Minister.
A year on, Putin has not changed his strategic aim. His claim last September that Kherson and much of the Donbass were now part of Mother Russia underlined his continuing strategic aim. Russia is expected to launch a further offensive. Will this one take the form of shock and awe, one wonders, with massive use of airpower? Russia has that ability, although it has been noticeable—even surprising—how little attempt it made at the outset, or in the past 12 months, to establish air supremacy in its classic form.
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Intriguingly, the Wagner paramilitary group, bolstered by the mass deployment of at least 40,000 convicts, has been prominent in many of these recent manoeuvres. The extraordinary expansion of this group, and the corresponding increase in its public profile, raise interesting questions about the current nature of the Russian state. Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin continues to indulge in the most direct criticism of his military counterparts. It is difficult to imagine that this tension will not implode sooner or later. In a sense, tracking the implications of this war on the dynamics of Moscow’s power structures is as important as following the events on the front line.
For all Russia’s recent tactical advances, winter has imposed an effective operational stalemate in the active areas of the Ukrainian front line. Both sides are now bogged down in attritional warfare that has more in common with World War One. Military casualties on both sides have been high, with each side struggling. We are seeing a Russian security apparatus that is increasingly factional and overstretched. It is highly unlikely that the hundreds of thousands of mobilised reservists have been formed into cohesive formations capable of major offensive manoeuvre operations. None the less, with spring around the corner, there are signs that President Putin is amassing his forces in preparation for a surge in the coming weeks. Oleksii Reznikov, Ukraine’s Defence Minister, believes that Russia is planning a major offensive to coincide with the one-year anniversary of the war in Ukraine on 24 February. In other words, President Zelensky and the Ukrainian armed forces require the support of their friends in the international community more than ever.
One thing is clear: the UK will remain at the forefront of that effort. It is worth perhaps a brief summary of how we have led so far. Like many, we were taken aback by President Putin’s actions on 24 February 2022, but we were not unprepared. Indeed, since 2015, we had trained more than 22,000 Ukrainians through Operation Orbital following the annexation of Crimea. As soon as Russian boots touched Ukrainian soil, we were again determined to lead the international response. The UK was the first European country to provide Ukraine with lethal aid to help stall the Russian advance. To date, we have donated thousands of short and long-range missiles, Stormer vehicles fitted with Starstreak missile launchers, and multiple launch rocket systems capable of striking targets up to 80 kilometres away with pinpoint accuracy. Last month, we led the world by providing modern main battle tanks to Ukraine.
I know that many noble Lords today will wish to know about the effect of these donations on our own supplies, so it is worth noting that even as we gift capability, we are seeking to restock and replenish. We are reviewing the number of Challenger 3 conversions to consider whether the lessons of Ukraine suggest that we need a larger tank fleet. We are accelerating the Army’s Mobile Fires programme so that, instead of delivering in the 2030s, it will do so earlier in this decade. Subject to commercial negotiation, an interim artillery capability will also be delivered. Furthermore, we are commissioning the backfilling of 155-millimetre artillery shells. In November, we signed a contract for high-velocity anti-aircraft defence missiles to replace the ones we had gifted. On top of that, in the Autumn Statement there was a £560 million increase for our own stockpiles.
Ours is a calibrated response—one that is necessitated by Russia’s growing aggression and indiscriminate bombing, but also intended to act as a force multiplier. The UK’s announcement generated unstoppable momentum, with countries following our lead to pledge main battle tanks to Ukraine. Germany’s decision to send Leopard 2 tanks and the United States’ to send Abrams tanks, coupled with the pledges of Poland, Spain, Canada and France, have enabled us to send a unified signal to Moscow that is more important than any individual contribution. It is a signal that says no one is acting unilaterally and that we are united in helping Ukraine to defend its land and evict the illegal invader.
Let us be clear: in 2023, the UK’s support to Ukraine will remain unwavering. We have already committed to match the £2.3 billion in military aid we spent last year. Yesterday the Prime Minister went further still, not just expanding our training offer for Ukrainian troops to include fighter jet pilots—enabling Ukrainian aviators to fly sophisticated NATO-standard fighters in the future—but offering to provide Ukraine with longer-range capabilities to inhibit Russia’s ability to target civilians and critical national infrastructure while also relieving pressure on Ukraine’s front lines.
Make no mistake: we will continue to use our influence and convening power to keep that global support solid. Once again, we are joined in this great endeavour by our friends in the United States. They have invested approximately $24.2 billion in support for Ukraine since the beginning of Russia’s invasion. They have delivered thousands of anti-aircraft and anti-armour systems as well as Patriot air defence battery and munitions, refurbished T-72B tanks and Bradley infantry fighting vehicles. As an aside, the other week I met a group of American congress men and women, and I can tell your Lordships that the US absolutely approves of what we are doing. They pointed out to me that in their country those tempted to think that this was a remote European issue have been given a wake-up call. They now understand how the conflict can reach them, not just in the form of hostile aggression but through its wider impacts, including economic fluctuations, energy shocks and cost of living crises.
Many other allies are part of the broad pro-Ukraine coalition. On 19 January, the United Kingdom—alongside Estonia, Poland, Latvia and Lithuania, and the representatives of Denmark, the Czech Republic, the Netherlands, and Slovakia—signed the Tallinn pledge to collectively pursue
“the delivery of an unprecedented set of donations including main battle tanks, heavy artillery, air defence, ammunition, and infantry fighting vehicles to Ukraine’s defence”.
Separately, our international fund now stands at over £500 million. Sweden, the Netherlands, Norway, Denmark, Lithuania and Iceland have donated generously, and we shall soon be announcing the first round of bids.
However, our efforts are not confined to supplying aid or raising donations. The United Kingdom will continue to demonstrate global leadership by hosting both the international Justice Ministers conference on war crimes in March and the Ukraine recovery conference in June. We are playing a critical role in training Ukrainian forces too. Besides teaching Ukrainian tank crews how to operate Challenger platforms and how to fight as a formed unit with those tanks, we are providing specialist basic training to Ukrainian recruits. I went to see that happening last week. It was a privilege to be there; it was both inspiring and humbling. The training is excellent and the Ukrainians receptive, quick to learn and agile. So far, we have trained more than 10,000 Ukrainian personnel in the UK. This year, we are doubling down on that success by increasing the number to a further 20,000. If noble Lords want an illustration of international solidarity with Ukraine, they should just consider our partners in this extraordinary training effort: Australia, Canada, Denmark, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, Norway, New Zealand and the Netherlands.
President Putin’s flagrant breach of international law has forced us to come to terms with a new reality. It has brought the resurgence of state aggression into sharp relief. For the first time since World War II, we have seen the manifestation of an illegal land-based war in Europe: a desperate attempt by one nation to conquer another country’s sovereign territory. However, there have also been a number of other interesting outcomes that President Putin certainly did not foresee, because the 2020s have not proved a mirror to the 1930s. Nations have not been cowed or coerced into staying silent. President Putin wished for a weaker NATO, but NATO is more solid and more determined and—with the anticipated accession of Finland and Sweden—even stronger. Indeed, we will continue to do all we can to ensure that the final hurdles are removed to allow their swift entry into the alliance.
It is equally striking how nations outside NATO’s orbit have also come to the same conclusion: that their interests align and that they too have a role to play in defending international order. Notably, the United Kingdom has once again been instrumental in bringing northern European neighbours together in solidarity under the auspices of the Joint Expeditionary Force, ensuring a steady supply of lethal and non-lethal aid to sustain Ukrainian resistance.
Back on the home front, we now have a clearer picture of the more serious threats and a renewed understanding of the significance of traditional war-fighting capability. We are planning to refresh our 2021 integrated review and Command Paper. This will be an important opportunity to address the hollowing-out of our land capability over many years under successive Governments, to restore our combat credibility, to rebuild our land industrial base and to modernise the whole of defence to confront the threats of tomorrow.
Kremlin propagandists will inevitably paint any support for Ukraine as an attack on Russia, so-called NATO-orchestrated aggression, or even a proxy war. For the avoidance of doubt, the escalation is not happening today. It started in February 2022, when the Russian Government chose to invade Ukraine illegally to pursue their vain imperialist dream. No one who watched President Zelensky give his stirring address in Westminster Hall yesterday can fail to have been impressed by his courage, his indomitable spirit and his powerful conviction that, in his words,
“bravery takes you through the most unimaginable hardships to finally reward you with victory”.
He and his people are an inspiration, and in 2022 they achieved impossible things; but the reality is that bravery and heroism will not be enough against Russia. Ukraine needs its friends to continue upping their support, which is why, in 2023, as the Prime Minister has said, we must seize the opportunity to accelerate our support for Ukraine before Russia tries to recover its equilibrium.
Putin hopes to wear down the West. He hopes our unity will fracture. He hopes we will seek a rapid return to the status quo. However, history has already taught us that you can never let wrong go unpunished because, if you do, you do not know where that wrong will end up. Therefore, we must show the Kremlin the error of its ways, working with our international partners to aggregate our military muscle and diplomatic clout. We must do all in our power to help brave Ukrainians expel Russia from their sovereign soil. Ultimately, as President Zelensky put it so eloquently yesterday, Russia must lose so that freedom will win. I beg to move.
In the immediate term, the Government must also contend with how they can best support the people of Ukraine through the final months of winter. Putin’s illegal invasion has left key areas of the country’s infrastructure decimated, and the attacks on energy and water plants appear to be part of an attempt to freeze the population of Ukraine into submission. I hope the Minister can set out what the Government are doing to support the viability of Ukraine’s energy sector going forward. Can he also set out what additional support the United Kingdom will provide to Ukraine beyond the 850 generators already delivered, and what further measures will be taken to support Ukrainians in the light of these continued attacks by Russia on critical infrastructure?
As the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, reaffirmed, we must remain committed to military support for Ukraine. Ultimately, we must constantly ask ourselves how we can better assist it in winning this war. Immediately following President Zelensky’s speech, the Prime Minister said that the UK’s provision of planes is “part of the conversation”, but that the immediate need is for longer-range missiles and tanks—the noble Baroness referred to this—and that it may take as long as three years to train pilots to use UK jets. He also noted that there are supply chain issues, adding that some of the UK’s aircraft are linked to joint treaties with other countries. The PM said that Britain was only making a different long-term offer on fighter jets, saying that the UK would be
“expanding its training offer to include fighter jet pilots to ensure Ukraine can defend its skies well into the future”.
I know that the United States has been allocating resources to that sort of training. Downing Street said:
“The training will ensure pilots are able to fly sophisticated NATO standard fighter jets in the future.”
What is the timeframe for this? What discussions have taken place with our NATO allies on such a programme?
Turning to next-generation light anti-tank weapons, although I am pleased that the Government have announced that a contract to start replenishing stocks has finally been signed, can the Minister confirm how many other contracts have been signed to start to replace the military aid sent to Ukraine? I heard the confident remarks from the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, in this regard but it would be good to hear a little more detail to ensure that this is actually happening.
Of course, sanctions are another of the greatest tools at our disposal in supporting Ukraine and holding Putin to account. The Minister will be aware that the US recently imposed new sanctions on Russia, targeting a network accused of procuring military and dual-use technologies from US manufacturers and illegally supplying them to Russia for the war. Given that RUSI has confirmed that UK components are also appearing in Russian weaponry, can the Minister confirm whether the UK is looking to impose similar sanctions? No doubt the Minister will say that he cannot comment on future designations for sanctions, but we want to hear from him that we are confident we can tackle these leaks and breaches of our own sanctions and that we are absolutely determined to work closely with our allies to do this.
On frozen Russian assets, the EU and Canada recently set out a plan to repurpose such assets to help rebuild critical Ukrainian infrastructure and provide much-needed humanitarian aid to the country. Does the Minister have any plans to replicate this, work in tandem with these important allies and engage with the EU and Canada to support those efforts?
Finally, the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, mentioned the growing body of evidence of Russian war crimes in Ukraine. In addition to taking any steps we can to help the Ukrainians, we must consider how we can hold Putin and his regime to account. The reports of new mass graves in liberated areas and increasing evidence of war crimes demand accountability. It is in everyone’s interests that the UK supports all international efforts to document, investigate and prosecute these crimes. I know that the Minister has been committed to this strategy in other international scenarios. He will be aware that, since March, my colleagues in the House of Commons have been calling for a special international tribunal to prosecute Putin and members of his armed forces for the crime of aggression and other war crimes that have been evidenced. The EU backs the plan, as do the Ukrainian Government. Can the Minister explain why we as a country are not planning to support such efforts?
Unfortunately, it is now clear that Putin’s aim is not simply to take Ukraine. His regime has shown that it is prepared to use armed forces in contempt of international institutions and humanitarian law. For this reason, as Putin expands his war effort and amasses further troops, we must also remain alert to the more immediate threat to the United Kingdom and our allies. It is important that our commitment to NATO is unshakeable, and this must be paired with a rebooting our defence plans, as more than 20 of our NATO allies have done. We have heard repeated calls for the integrated review to be reviewed; however, we need not just the review but absolutely clear plans to reboot our defence mechanisms.
If this war is to end, we must make it clear to Putin that things will get worse, not better, for Russia. We must also give Ukraine the confidence it needs by announcing a longer-term strategy. On Britain’s military help to Ukraine and reinforcing our NATO allies on the border, the Government have had and will continue to have Labour’s full support. In standing side by side with Ukraine against this illegal invasion, we are not only reflecting our global values but defending our national interests.
Like many colleagues, I have visited Ukraine. I have been there three times. The people of that country have a very differing view from Putin of their own future. They want to determine it themselves. Their clear desire to join the EU and to work with us and NATO for security I believe is now, for the long term, immutable. Putin made another miscalculation. A year ago, we could not possibly have forecast the German Zeitenwende, the sea change in Germany policies. We could not have forecast how European energy reliance on Russian gas has moved from 50% to less than 13% in one year—extraordinary changes. I and colleagues from these Benches have been in lockstep with the Government on support for the Government of Ukraine and we have all been impressed, as the Minister said, by the support from the British people for the people of Ukraine, from individual families and communities across all parts of the UK welcoming those in need, through to the Government providing hard military capabilities—“tea and tanks”, as President Zelensky may have put it.
We have supported the raft of economic sanctions and I have debated them all with the noble Lord, Lord Collins. I too put on record my appreciation of the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, for how he has engaged with us, informed us and been accessible to us. It is an exemplary way for a Minister to operate on foreign affairs. However, we did argue that we needed to have moved faster on closing London’s laundromat reputation. The data from the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation’s Annual Review from the end of last year said that in 2021, £44.5 million of Russian assets were frozen. By November 2022, that figure had risen to £18 billion, showing the extraordinary exposure that the UK had to questionable Russian finance—to which, regrettably, all too often a blind eye was turned. The Government continue to refuse to state who on the sanctions list now had been issued with a golden visa and effectively paid to launder their money through Britain.
We have supported the Ukrainian settlement scheme, but it was only through scrutiny that we found out that this scheme in its entirety will be scored against development assistance—uniquely among OECD countries—meaning that it has been offset by cuts elsewhere. We must be self- aware that these reductions are a part of how Russia is opening what I described in the autumn as a second front in this war, in the east and the global south. I am fearful that the UK is not focused enough now on that front.
Last week I raised concerns with the Minister on the red-carpet treatment given to Sergey Lavrov by our friends in South Africa, and the naval exercises that South Africa, China and Russia will be carrying out in just 10 days’ time. India and Sri Lanka have increased oil purchases, and the gold trade from the east and southern Africa via the Gulf and into Moscow is flourishing. In certain sectors, the rouble is strong. Four years of reductions in UK development co-operation mean something, not just for the most vulnerable people in the world but geopolitically.
We must be self-aware and acknowledge that, while our economic sanctions have undeniably been extensive and in many areas effective, in other areas they have been offset and circumvented elsewhere. As Putin now enters a different phase, of slow, grinding horror against the Ukrainian people, we must also think of how to isolate Russia more. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Collins, that the next phase of our sanctions and economic measures must be considered carefully and those measures must be strong. They must also ensure that our work on the second front is considered.
I have no doubt that Putin miscalculated when he underestimated the resolve of the Ukrainian people. He thought that the EU would splinter and that the EU, UK and US would not work as closely as they have. However, he has been more successful in presenting this aggression not as imperial expansion, which it undoubtedly is, but as Cold War alignment. In March last year, 25 African countries either abstained or refrained from voting on a UN resolution to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. In South Africa alone, as I referred to, in one minor but telling example, the ANC Youth League sent observers to Russia’s phoney referendum in the four Ukrainian provinces occupied by Russia in September and described the referendum as
“a beautiful, wonderful process”.
From the Sahel to southern Africa, a sweep of Russian malign influence is seen, and, of course, they have their blood-soaked criminal mercenaries to act as a proxy. As I have mentioned in the Chamber before, I have seen with my own eyes the Wagner Group operate in Sudan. I was the first in Parliament to call for that group’s proscription. I did so to Ministers in this Chamber on 25 April, 23 May, 9 June, 17 July, 15 November, 21 December, and again on 26 January. At that time, the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, said that she would write to me. I have not had a reply yet. Ed Davey asked the Prime Minister about this issue yesterday. This group is a threat to our security and our safety, to British nationals abroad and to our allies. Why have we not proscribed it? Why are we acting so slowly? When the Minister winds up this debate, I hope that he can confirm that we will indeed proscribe this group. There cannot be impunity for the Putin regime’s human rights crimes, nor should there be for his proxies.
I very much welcome the shift in the Government’s position regarding the tribunal that was announced on 20 January, supporting the establishment of a tribunal on aggression. I call again on the Government to add the UK’s support to the Kampala Amendments to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court on the crime of aggression. It is incongruous that we support now a tribunal under the authority of articles in the Rome statute that we have so far not supported, but the shift in government policy is welcome. As President Zelensky told us yesterday, if we support the rules-based international order there should be no impunity for those who break those rules or seek to circumvent them.
I attended an event supporting the International Criminal Court last autumn and spoke with a Ukrainian MP friend of mine, Galyna Mykhailiuk. I asked her a number of questions during the event about the situation with the people of Ukraine. She was extremely humble. She said, “Can I ask you a question, please?” I said, “Of course”. I thought that it would be about UK support or military equipment and missiles. She said, “Just out of interest, have you ever met the Queen?” I said, “Funnily enough, I have”. She said, “Can I please pass on the condolences of the people of Ukraine on the Queen’s passing?” She then said, “I have to let you in on a secret”—which I have her permission to tell your Lordships. “I watched, with a group of my fellow MPs, the whole of the funeral.” Then she said, rather cheekily, “I missed the plenary of the Parliament and my committee meeting to watch the funeral”. She paused and then said, “I did not see the Windsor Castle part because I had to attend my AK-47 training”.
MPs were told there a year ago that they should expect an imminent Russian special forces attack on their Verkhovna Rada building, where they would be either murdered or held hostage as part of the installation of a puppet regime. They thwarted that and their Parliament carried on. It legislated. Its staff, some of whom were also conscripted to the front, and others, continued to help ensure that the raft of emergency legislation could be passed. It continues to function.
Putin has no feel for, nor knowledge or understanding of, a representative parliamentary democracy—he has persecuted his own opposition at home—but the people of Ukraine do. I hope the Minister will support what I am calling for, which is a nomination process for the Ukrainian parliament to be given the George Medal. That parliament, as an institution, a representative democracy at a time of horror and aggression, has been humbling for all other parliamentarians in the world.
One of the reasons that I feel so humble is that I see that they are managing to do what we, in this building, did 80 or so years ago. On the night of 10 May 1941, a bomb fell through the roof of this Chamber and hit the very spot where I stand. It did not detonate. Bombs did not stop our Parliament from carrying on, and Putin’s missiles will not stop Ukraine’s either.
From looking at these strategic objectives, it is apparent that they differ markedly. That is unsurprising in the case of Russia and Ukraine, but it is also true with regard to the UK’s aims and, I suspect, those of many other countries that support Ukraine. This makes it very difficult to see what shape a long-term political solution might take. However, there is far less uncertainty about the near term. This is because, if Putin’s aggression is to be widely perceived as having failed, Russia must end up in no better a position than when it started the conflict and preferably in a worse one. That means Ukraine recovering its southern coastline and at least some of the Donbass.
Both those outcomes are, at best, some way off, so for the moment we need not concern ourselves about how much further the Ukrainian Government’s ambitions might stretch. That may become a pressing issue if Russian forces are driven back significantly, but there are a great many bridges to cross, both literally and figuratively, before we get anywhere near that point. For now, we should focus our minds and efforts on those bridges, and not worry unduly about what forks may lie along the road in the far distance.
Our immediate priority, like that of Ukraine, must therefore be further reversals of Russia’s territorial gains. But Ukraine’s continued success in this regard relies not just on the sustained valour of its people but on the willingness of western nations to maintain their high level of material support. That, in turn, depends to an extent on the perception of military progress—something of a chicken-and-egg situation.
My conclusion from all this is that the Ukrainian forces will need to make demonstrable gains over 2023. That, though, begs the question of the means required to achieve such an outcome, so I turn to some detailed points and questions for the Minister.
We have seen the very recent, welcome decisions, by Germany in particular, on the provision of tanks to go along with the other armoured fighting vehicles and artillery already delivered and promised. We should be in no doubt, though, that offensive action to retake and hold ground is a very different proposition from mounting a defence against the kind of unco-ordinated and poorly led attack that we saw from Russian forces last summer. Tanks in sufficient numbers will be very helpful in this regard, but the ability to manoeuvre sizeable units with concentrated firepower, to clear obstacles, both natural and man-made, and to co-ordinate different elements, both on the ground and in the air, is a significant challenge to any military. Of course, the offensive forces need extensive logistical support, technical capabilities and, crucially, sufficient weapon stocks. The important aid that we and other countries have given to Ukraine has resulted in a multiplicity of equipment types, each with its own logistic tail and often with different ammunition requirements.
Can the Minister therefore tell the House what assessment His Majesty’s Government have made of the scale of development of Ukraine’s offensive capabilities and, in particular, of its sustainability in the light of the requirements I have outlined above? Is there more that we should be doing to improve the coherence of Ukraine’s capabilities rather than focusing just on quantity?
I turn to the air. It is clear that the continued existence of capable ground-based air defences on both sides has led to something of a stalemate. What advice and aid is the Ministry of Defence giving the Ukrainians to help them break the impasse, particularly in light of the advantage that air superiority would give an attacking force? I note the Government’s announcement yesterday that the UK will provide fast-jet pilot training for Ukrainians. This may be an important contribution to Ukrainian capability, but training pilots, even advanced training, takes a long time and they need aircraft to fly once they are trained—not that we have much to offer in that regard. Our Typhoon force is already overstretched maintaining the air defence of these islands and flying combat air patrols over NATO nations bordering the conflict.
Can the Minister explain how this initiative will fit into Ukraine’s broader operational plans? Is it intended to bolster the military effort in the present conflict or is it part of the longer-term development of the Ukrainian armed forces? Can he also say what impact this new undertaking is likely to have on our military? Given the signal failure, over the past few years, of the military flying training system to deliver sufficient capacity to meet the RAF’s needs, only compounded by the recent problems with the engine on the Hawk T2 aircraft, how confident is he that it can now rise to such an additional demand? Is this not yet another example of the stripping out of our military capabilities, which has gone on for so many years, coming home to roost? Until now, the Ukraine war has largely focused attention on the paucity of our weapon stocks, but this latest initiative highlights a much deeper and wider problem of capacity. Will the revision of the defence Command Paper address this?
Finally, I turn to an issue already raised by the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, and very ably highlighted yesterday by the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, in the briefing on Ukraine that the noble Baroness, Lady Goldie, kindly arranged for us. Outside of the NATO area, Russia seems to be having considerable success in the battle of the narratives. This has important implications for the longer term. In the Middle East, Asia and Africa, the danger posed by Russia and the plight of Ukraine are widely misunderstood. There is indeed sympathy for Russia, which is supposedly facing encirclement by a hostile and aggressive NATO. I know that the Minister understands the importance of countering this narrative, but can he reassure the House that the Government are working hard with allies to develop a co-ordinated and sustained response? We may not be able to win over everybody, but at the moment we are winning over far too few.
The conflict in Ukraine continues to throw up many complex and difficult questions, but this is a time for clarity. We should not expect the war to be decided this year, but it will be a decisive period in determining whether both we and Ukraine are able to achieve our objectives. With that in mind, we should bend every sinew to promote Ukrainian military success over these crucial months.
A recent report published by the Estonian Foreign Intelligence Service concluded that we should not expect Mr Putin to give up on his faltering war, and should bury any hopes of a successor toppling him anytime soon. The report goes on to say:
“Putin is playing for time, believing that Ukraine and the West will wear out before Russia.”
Ukrainian intelligence services, as the Minister pointed out, believe that Putin is planning a major counteroffensive, maybe as early as on 24 February to mark the beginning of his “war against the Nazis”.
The Russian army may be disorganised and the number of deaths, injured and deserters may be in the region of 200,000, but Putin has a large reserve at hand. There are three times more Russians than Ukrainians. This is reminiscent of Stalin during World War II; the Germans would kill 10 divisions, but 20 would resurge. Putin’s war stock is vast, while the delivery of western tanks may not arrive in time for the upcoming battle—and let us not forget that Russia is one of the world’s two largest nuclear powers.
Dr Kissinger recently questioned whether we were sleepwalking into a conflict similar to World War I, which none of the European leaders would have entered into had they foreseen what would follow. The President of Croatia—a NATO member—criticised western nations for supplying Ukraine with heavy tanks and other weapons, saying that it will only prolong the war and adding that it is “mad” to believe that Russia can be defeated in a conventional war.
I am enormously proud of our Government’s unwavering support and of the lead role they have taken immediately, not only in military aid but in economic and humanitarian aid and in their diplomatic efforts and successes with other countries.
However, in view of Putin’s revisionism, and Russia’s nuclear weapons, oil and gas, skills in cyber technology, and its proximity to Europe, I ask my noble friend the Minister to clarify exactly what our strategic aim is and say how we can achieve it. When we look at Russia, we can be clear about its strategic aim—which is possibly also to take control of the nuclear power in Ukraine. Ukraine’s strategic aims are also clear but can all the NATO nations have the same aim? How can we ensure that we work together to make a safer future for our country and the Ukrainians?
What, then, will it take to change Vladimir Putin’s mind without, as it happens, the advice to him of a politburo, a parliament or even a security council? The answer is: primarily by the determination of the West to stand by the territorial integrity of Ukraine and its people. Only by the united resolution of the countries of the free world insisting on the right of Ukraine and the Ukrainians to live as they want will the mind of Putin change when he sees that he cannot succeed. That unity of western Europe was Putin’s first serious miscalculation and so, too, was the renewed link between Europe and the United States. Both must be reinforced.
We must give President Zelensky, who inspired us all yesterday in Westminster Hall, the tools to defend his nation. The main thing, however, is to give long-term commitments to providing help. Piecemeal decisions do not have the same effect on the Kremlin as our united promise to continue providing the missiles, guns, ammunition and training that will help Ukraine to throw out the invader.
It is a brutal fact that the people of Ukraine are fighting for their lives, their country and democracy, but they are also fighting for us. It is again a brutal fact of the new world that Vladimir Putin has created that our front line of defending Britain is no longer the white cliffs of Dover or the north German plains but the mud and blood of the Donbass in eastern Ukraine. We must make sure that that front line is defended with vigour, determination and total resolution. That means that the Government must make a difficult but necessary choice to spend the cash, replenish all that we have sent to Ukraine and restore the defences of our own country. We can all now see the threat to us that is on display in technicolour in Donetsk, Luhansk and Mariupol. There is absolutely no excuse possible for skimping on the defence of our nation and our people. The first and overwhelming duty of any Government is the protection of the nation, and that duty cannot and must not be avoided.
I mentioned that I work with our sister parties in Ukraine. There are five, but two are particular key: Servant of the People, or Sluha Narodu, which is obviously in power and led by Zelensky, and Golos, which is led by Kira Rudik as leader of the opposition. The example of cross-party co-operation is so evident when you talk to any MP in the Ukrainian parliament, because one thing they all do is come together. Their debate in parliament usually universally accepts that there is one priority role. Kira, who is also a vice-president of ALDE alongside me and has become a friend, uses her role as an international ambassador to go wherever she is asked by her country to speak about its priorities and concerns. She is an example to us all.
It was Kira who, in May last year, contacted me to ask whether the UK could provide support for landmine clearance and ensure it arrived as soon as the Russians had vacated Donetsk and Luhansk, which they were just in the process of doing. I am extremely grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, and to Amanda Milling, whom I wrote to at the time to ask whether we could ensure that specific resources were available. I have worked somewhat with MAG over the past year. The one thing that still concerns it, despite everything that has gone extremely well, which I will come back to in a minute, is that there will still need to be considerable mine-clearing resource available in Ukraine as we move forward. The Government have done the right thing and not let it impact on landmine clearance that the UK funds elsewhere in the world. Will the Government continue to ensure that there are enough resources? I would like to point out the level of mine clearance elsewhere every year. My noble friend Lord Purvis spoke about the issues in southern Africa, and the numbers there are astonishing. In Somalia I think it is about 70,000 and in Myanmar it was 98,000 landmines last year alone. The numbers across the world are good, and this is something that the UK should be proud to do.
The key issue that I wanted to raise is that, now that the Mines Advisory Group and the Halo Trust are in touch with Ukraine, they have managed to work with a united Ukrainian Government. Every department that had to give permission to work with them has done so and did so quickly, within three to four weeks, and they are training their own Ukrainian people now to clear mines as well, which is something that both MAG and the Halo Trust do in every country that they go into. We know that the number of Russian attacks mean that there is a significant and serious problem that is continuing to grow with landmines and other things that can injure people, so I hope the Minister can give some reassurance on that.
My other focus is on the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I note that Russia signed it in 1990 just after it was first launched, so there are other things that Russia has signed but chosen not to be party to. Articles 6, 11, 19, 21 and 38 are vital when it comes to protecting the children of Ukraine, both in terms of simply being victims of war in areas where there are attacks and, particularly, in relation to children who are being adopted. Article 21 says that adoption must be safe and lawful, and that every adoption must prioritise the child’s best interest. That has not happened. It is now thought that over 13,000 children were forcibly removed from Ukraine by Russia, and some 2,000 are completely untraced. It is astonishing that the Russian media have promoted the fact that they were proud to take those children from those regions, saying:
“More than 1,000 babies from the liberated Mariupol have already found new families … More than 300 babies are on temporary maintenance in specialized institutions of the Krasnodar Territory and are looking forward to meeting their new families”.
This is the straightforward abduction of children of one nationality who are then moved to another country. It must be stopped. When the time is right, these children must be reunited with their birth families.
I shall end on some of the issues in UK civic society, where extraordinary things have happened. First, we need to pay tribute to those families who have hosted Ukrainian families; to the many schools that are taking in, right from day one, Ukrainian children and making sure that they can settle in; and to the many Ukrainian families working together to make sure that Ukrainian heritage is upheld and supported while the children are abroad, not just in the UK but elsewhere. I have seen friends running vans of goods, sometimes specialist goods such as pharmaceutical goods, to Ukraine as they are needed. As a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Fire Safety and Rescue Group, I find it notable that the national fire chiefs have had four convoys of firefighting equipment, including fire engines, that have already gone to Ukraine, and further trips are planned. These are not things that get national press in the way that day-to-day war does, but it shows us that in this country we have come together as best we can as ordinary people to try to play our part.
I was talking to Kira Rudik in the period between the Queen’s death and her funeral. I had just had a family dinner with my stepmother and my mother-in-law, both of whom grew up in the war, one in the Blitz and one in a northern city where there were daily bombings. Both of them said that the pictures from Ukraine were reminiscent of their childhood and that, in the early days of the Blitz, they all thought that things would end fast, but they did not. That is the big message from our own generation who have witnessed this at first hand. We must be there to help Ukraine every step of the way for however long this trial takes because we know that we can come out the other side of it—as we did—but we have to do so as a united world to stop Russia’s continued aggression.
Putin’s military commanders will be instructed this time to use all means, short of nuclear weapons, to defeat the Ukrainians. But at the back of their minds must be a fear that NATO would take advantage and maybe use the conflict as a pretext for advancing further east. We know that is not true, but truth is not a feature of Russian thinking or practice. They employ untruths—blatant lies—and will assume that NATO would too. A chasm between cultures is there. It exists.
How much, then, will Russia keep in reserve against a fear of NATO attack? That must affect its decisions about a shock and awe air-led assault and other advances further into Ukraine. Occupation would require stationing forces to keep Ukrainians under control; that too must be planned for. Will production fully match its high rates of ammunition consumption? In sum, it is a difficult operational and logistic balance to strike, but I expect Putin to try to strike it.
Another great principle of war is “maintenance of morale”—that is, on your side, along with the destruction of the morale of your opponents. Here, one must hand the winner’s cup to Zelensky. His leadership of his country stands with the likes of a Caesar or a Churchill. Putin’s leadership, too, depends not just on the rigours of an authoritarian regime but on inspiring Russians that his cause is noble. However, when it comes to those engaged in the actual battle, differences in morale are striking.
Ukrainians have been given astonishing leadership from the top, and they have responded magnificently. What could be more inspiring than when, as has already been mentioned, at the start of the conflict Zelensky was offered a safe flight and responded, “I don’t need a ride; I want more ammunition”, or his message and the symbolism yesterday in Westminster Hall? He is going to need more and more ammunition and much other support for his military. His plea for fighter jets, which will take time to implement if agreed, means he is up for a long struggle. Will the many new Russian troops, freshly conscripted and exposed to brutal conflict, feel as inspired as the Ukrainians? No way.
Finally, faced with further assault, the Ukrainians stand firm; they do not fold. What then? If they do not just hold ground but gradually force the Russians to retreat and give up more and more of the country they occupy, even Crimea, Putin must face the truth: he has not achieved his aim. He must fear, however unreal, that behind any Ukrainian success, NATO would choose to venture even closer to Moscow—even further than Sweden and Finland joining NATO. That is a position unacceptable to Putin. In his eyes, it would directly threaten to destroy his Russia. How would he respond if he were to be booted out of Ukraine? That is the big unknown for all to ponder. I hope, even now, that we and our allies are in deep deliberation and gaming these future issues.