Ukraine

Lord Hannay of Chiswick Excerpts

Friday 25th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Hannay of Chiswick (CB)]

My Lords, one of my first professional involvements with Ukraine was in 1994 when, as Britain’s Permanent Representative to the UN, I was instructed, along with my Russian and US colleagues, as co-depositories of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, to transmit to the UN the Budapest memorandum, certifying it as a formal international agreement. The memorandum guaranteed Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity in return for handing over all the nuclear warheads and missiles that the Soviet Union had left behind. My Russian colleague was one Sergei Lavrov. I hope that touches his conscience—it certainly should do—but I rather doubt whether it does.

We need to realise, I believe, that the events of the last few days have triggered a second Cold War. Like the first, it will probably last quite a long time and impose costs on ourselves as well as others. It will be a necessary response to a war of choice, a war of aggression, and therefore a war crime.

How, in practical terms, should we react? We should surely give no international legitimacy to any puppet Government the Russians may try to install, nor to the Governments of the five illegal statelets they have installed in Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine by the use of force. The elected Government of President Zelensky should remain our interlocutor and the holder of Ukraine’s UN seat.

On further sanctions, I hope that excluding Russia from the SWIFT payment system will figure. It is a pity we are not at the European Council table, or in the room at least, to advocate for that. Do we not, too, need to consider recreating something like the CoCom international system on strategic exports? Should we not also consider reviving in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office what used to be called the information research department to deal with disinformation and to undermine the false narrative being put about by the Kremlin, RT and trolls on social media? I very much welcomed the emphasis the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, gave to that issue in his remarkable maiden speech. Then there is the economic crime Bill, still to appear; surely that needs to go on to the statue book in this Session of Parliament and not the next one. Of course, Ukrainians will need all the humanitarian help we can give them, and Ukrainian asylum seekers must, and I hope will, be treated rapidly and sympathetically.

The Russians have thrown down the gauntlet against the European security order they themselves helped to create in 1990. We will need to respond to that challenge with patience and determination by boosting the defences of NATO allies most exposed to pressure; by recognising that the European region is now a higher priority for us than the Indo-Pacific region; and by keeping in lockstep with the US, our other NATO partners and the EU itself, which is already playing a key role over sanctions.

Yesterday was a grim day for all Europeans. But we rose successfully to the challenge after the Second World War, and we should be able to do so again now. It is our own security that is at stake.