Ukraine — House of Commons, 2015-02-10
Topic: International Affairs
Philip Hammond (Conservative, Centre-right): Despite the slightly churlish remarks towards the end of his remarks, I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s generally supportive approach to this issue, and he is right that Vladimir Putin evidently miscalculated the resolve of the international community to stand firm on this issue. That resolve did not appear without prompting, however, and required a lot of consensus building. Candidly, I will say also that the catalyst of the destruction of Malaysia Airways flight MH17 pulled some of, shall we say, the weaker brethren into line, and ensured a clear and robust alliance on this issue. In particular, the UK and the Netherlands can claim credit for having been key elements in stiffening resolve in that crucial European Council meeting last July The right hon. Gentleman asked a sensible question about new restrictive measures, and our priority will be to achieve an early roll-over of the tier 3 sanctions. The package of tier 3 sanctions is due to expire at the end of July, and the strongest possible signal that could be sent to the Kremlin would be an early decision to extend that sanctions period, perhaps to the end of 2015. The Kremlin’s knowledge that sanctions will continue, and—most importantly—that it will not have the leverage point of the EU, at 28 member states, having to re-agree a consensus to renew them, removes a lot of its incentives for mischief making, so that will be our priority. I expect that tomorrow, if matters have not progressed or there is bad news from Minsk, the European Council will task the European External Action Service to scope options for further sanctions A number of perfectly robust allies are now beginning to be slightly concerned about the scale of damage being inflicted on Russia’s economy. We want to hurt the Russians and we want them to pay a price for their aggression in Ukraine, but we do not want the Russian economy to collapse. There is now concern about the scale of damage being inflicted The right hon. Gentleman asked me to clarify the position on lethal aid. He is right to say that Ukraine cannot beat the Russian army—it does not have the scale of forces, and the Russian army has enormous reserves that it could potentially throw into the conflict. He asked about the circumstances in which we would supply lethal aid, but we have not defined those circumstances. All I have said is that we will not rule out the possibility of supplying lethal aid, and we want to reserve the right to review that position. In my statement I said clearly that we cannot afford to see the Ukrainian army collapse, so perhaps he will take from that a steer as to where our thinking lies The right hon. Gentleman asked about the UK contribution to the diplomatic effort, and there are two strands to that. There is a forward strand that includes discussions with the Ukrainians and the Russians. In my judgment—being perfectly objective about this and not waving a little flag for the sake of it—the German Chancellor is in the best position to conduct such discussions with the Kremlin. She has channels open with the Kremlin that we, the Americans, and others do not have The right hon. Gentleman asked about opening out the Normandy process, but if we were to open out that grouping—it is currently four: Russia, Ukraine, Germany and France—we would not be able just to insert the UK but would have to widen that group quite significantly. The United States, naturally, would say, "Well, if the UK is going to join, we must have a seat," and other European Union partners would also expect to be present, most obviously Poland and Italy. We would therefore have a significantly wider group, and our judgment is that for this phase of the process, maintaining that Normandy format is the best way forward The second strand of diplomatic activity is behind-the-scenes activity to hold together the European Union consensus and ensure that the EU is aligned with the US, Australia, Japan and other partners. That is a significant diplomatic-legwork task—unglamorous but vital—and I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the UK has played a leading role in designing the sanctions packages, identifying the individuals, companies and sectors to be targeted by sanctions, and building and maintaining consensus in Brussels and around the capitals of Europe. General Sir Richard Shirreff says that the Prime Minister is a "diplomatic irrelevance", but I suggest that perhaps he should consider carefully the meaning of the word "irrelevance" and where it might best be applied The right hon. Gentleman talked about Russian coercion and the energy exposure of the European Union to Russian pressure, all of which we are acutely aware of. There is also Russian corruption and the influence of Russian money in the politics of some Balkan countries—even now, one party in the recent Bulgarian general election launched its manifesto in the Kremlin, which may provide a clue, and we are acutely aware of all those things. Europe must make itself more resilient against Russian influence, and that is an important part of the agenda going forward.