Without support from his enablers, President Putin would realise peace is his best option in Ukraine: UK statement to the OSCE
Source: gov.uk (2025-09-25)

Ambassador Holland explains that support from Iran, DPRK and - most decisively - China, are an important factor delaying President Putin's realisation that he needs to get serious about peace in Ukraine.

Thank you, Madam Chair.

Many of us in this room have repeatedly called for Russia to end its illegal and unprovoked full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Regrettably there continues to be no evidence that President Putin has any interest in a negotiated peace short of Ukrainian capitulation. The reason is clear: President Putin refuses to accept Ukraine’s sovereignty and its very existence as a country and a nation.

Kremlin talking points aim to convince us all that a Russian victory is inevitable. But they are wrong. Russia’s economy and demography are in long-term decline, and the war – and our response to it - is only hastening this. Eventually President Putin will need to get serious about striking a deal.

Who knows how many lives could have been spared and how much destruction could have been avoided if President Putin had concluded far earlier that peace was his best option. But an important factor in why he didn’t was the external support he’s received: from DPRK, from Iran and, most decisively, from China.

In desperation to sustain its Military Industrial Complex and its brutal and unjustified attacks on Ukrainian cities, Russia has turned to Iran for drones and ballistic missiles, and to DPRK for ammunition, artillery, and combat troops. In return Russia provides military, economic, and diplomatic support to them both, undermining the global sanctions regimes it is obliged to uphold, and contributing to greater instability in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific. Such reckless behaviour has not only turned the Ukraine war into a global one but further emboldened the regimes in Tehran and Pyongyang.

Russia has benefitted from Iranian drones and missiles, and from using DPRK troops to take heavy casualties on the frontlines. But it is China who remains Russia’s decisive enabler.

While China claims to support upholding the territorial integrity of all nations, after three and a half years it has failed to condemn Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine. Beijing’s decision to back Moscow politically, diplomatically and economically gives President Putin the confidence he needs to bombard Ukrainian civilians, spread instability and undermine efforts to end the war. It is precisely this backing that has emboldened Russia to increase the risks of “spillover”, which China’s Deputy Permanent Representative said we needed to contain when speaking at the UN earlier this week.

China is the single largest exporter of Common High Priority goods to Russia, comprising over 85% in the first half of 2025. Credible open-source evidence details the scale of support that Chinese companies are providing to their Russian counterparts in the production of lethal equipment, directly violating China’s own export controls. Ukrainian military intelligence has said that the Garpiya one-way attack drone – which is entirely reliant on Chinese components – is being deployed at a rate of roughly 500 a month to attack Ukraine.

China’s support to Russia’s war machine is decisive. Through the dependency that Moscow has developed with its senior partner, it is undermining European security and spreading instability in this region and beyond.

Madam Chair, in Beijing, while President Putin pondered immortality, his war in Ukraine continued to hasten the deaths of Russians and Ukrainians alike. Without the support of his enablers, President Putin could not continue his murderous campaign in Ukraine and would come to the realisation far sooner that peace is his best option.

Thank you.