Ukraine

Duncan Hames Excerpts

Tuesday 10th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hammond]

On that last point—two huge armed forces meeting in central Europe—the hon. Gentleman will know that NATO has refrained from stationing non-national NATO troops in the front-line new NATO member states precisely to avoid that build-up. It is part of the Russia-NATO agreement to avoid that build-up of forces in a confrontational way. I am personally rather reluctant to dictate to independent third countries what they can and cannot do. I think Ukraine is perfectly entitled to aspire to membership of the EU or NATO if it chooses to do so. However, it is very, very clear that membership of either organisation would be many, many years away. Ukraine would have a huge amount of work to do before it was ready for membership of either organisation.

[Duncan Hames (Chippenham) (LD)]

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s clear articulation of the economic limits to Russia’s stance, but what is his assessment of the economic impact on Ukraine’s ability to sustain its position and the period of conflict with Putin’s proxies?