Ukraine

Stephen Kinnock Excerpts

Tuesday 25th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Yes. The National Cyber Security Centre is indeed offering help to Ukraine for precisely that purpose. Russian cyber-attacks, as the House knows, can be extremely damaging and we can do a lot to help.

[Stephen Kinnock (Aberavon) (Lab)]

The Government’s position is that sanctions will be deployed against Russia if there is an incursion, but would the Government consider deploying some sanctions now, as a clear signal to Russia, and saying that if President Putin stands down his troops and withdraws his forces, further sanctions will not be deployed? Would that not be a more effective sequencing of the process?

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his thoughtful argument. As I have said, we already have Magnitsky sanctions in place on the Russian regime, sanctions in response to the seizure of Crimea and Sevastopol already in place—a wide variety of sanctions. I think what we need to do, if I may say so, is build up an instant, automatic package of western sanctions that will come in automatically in the event of a single toecap of a Russian incursion into more of Ukraine.