Speech in the House of Lords – Ukraine

by
Robert Skidelsky
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Below is my speech on Ukraine in the House of Lords on the 25th of October. Unfortunately, time constraints forced me to leave out two bits of my argument which I will put in brackets in the text.

“My Lords, I am usually put last on the speakers’ list in any debate on this topic, but I treat that as a badge of honour. I welcome the opportunity we have been given to take note. I have been taking note of the Government’s position on Ukraine for over two years now. It is unchanging: the promise, endlessly repeated, to support Ukraine “up to the hilt”—to do “whatever it takes”. The noble Lord, Lord Coaker, has simply repeated this with his usual eloquence.

What Ukraine thinks it takes is shown by President Zelensky’s latest victory plan: the Russian army must be driven out of Crimea and Donbass. However, who now believes that Ukraine can achieve this kind of victory at the present level of western support? Rather, there is growing agreement that without expanded western support, Ukraine, despite its courage and determination, faces defeat. This was always likely once Russia started to mobilise on a larger scale.

The demographics alone indicate this: you have a country of 36 million fighting one of 147 million. In the last four years, Ukraine’s population has shrunk by 20% while Russia’s has grown. A population the size of London has simply disappeared through war and migration; that is the reality on the ground. Of course, North Korean involvement has added a new front in this debate, but we must not delude ourselves that Russia needs North Korean troops to go on fighting. So the question arises: what more must we do to do what it takes?

There are two basic answers. The first is to tighten economic sanctions, for example by confiscating seized Russian assets. The idea that economic sanctions will cripple Putin’s war machine lingers on in the face of much evidence to the contrary. Since sanctions were imposed, Russia’s economy has boomed, Ukraine’s has slumped and the EU’s has stagnated. I hope that Treasury officials will expand on the lesson given by my noble friend Lord Desai as to why this has happened and persuade their sanctions-addicted colleagues at the Foreign Office to ease up on their enthusiasm for this approach.

I want to repeat the question from the noble Baroness, Lady Smith, which was also referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Balfe. Have the Government taken note of the two-day BRICS summit in Kazan, where Putin hosted a meeting of 36 countries including India and China? It was also attended by UN Secretary-General António Guterres. One wants to ask: in this evolving world order, who is the pariah?

The other notion going around is that we should give Ukraine permission to use long-range missiles and navigation systems, supplied by us and other NATO countries, to strike targets deep in Russia. Do the Government support this? It is crucial, because without that support their strategy collapses. Ukraine needs something else. Is the Government prepared to provide that long-range ability to strike deep into Russian territory?

The victory at any price school relies on two exceedingly dangerous fallacies. The first is that defeating Russia in Ukraine is the key to the security of Europe. For understandable reasons, Ukraine presents itself as Europe’s shield against Russia, and many noble Lords have endorsed this. The argument goes: “If you do not defeat the Russians in Ukraine, they will keep on coming at you. Who next—the Baltics, Georgia, Poland or Moldova? Where will a maniac like Putin stop?” I call this the Munich reflex. It affects the thinking of all British elites because Britain, by its surrender to Hitler at Munich, unleashed him on the rest of Europe. They feel guilty about it and say: “We must not repeat that mistake”. But this is contextually blind. As Owen Matthews pertinently pointed out,

“the supposedly mighty Russian army has been fought to a standstill not by Nato—which, as Zelensky joked … ‘hasn’t turned up yet’—but by Ukraine’s once-tiny military”.

The second conceptual flaw is the discounting of Russian retaliation. That is very dangerous. Putin has already said that Russia would be prepared to use nuclear weapons in response to any massive air and space attack over Russia’s border by a non-nuclear power. Is it the Government’s view that he is bluffing?

(Is it the government’s view that Putin is bluffing? Do we really want to make an existential bet on that hypothesis? Is even the smallest risk of nuclear war worth the far from obvious military gains of  allowing long-range rocket attacks on Russia?)

(As I have argued  elsewhere, true ‘victory’ for Ukraine lies not in regaining lost territory but in becoming a prosperous, democratic European nation free of Russian political meddling and strong enough to defend itself against future military threats. Going on fighting a war that systematically destroys a new generation of young Ukrainians and annihilates the country’s infrastructure and economy would be the real victory for Vladimir Putin.)

Is there a way to bring the fighting to an end? The most hopeful recent development in this deadly game of chicken has been a statement by President Zelensky reported in the Financial Times two days ago:

“Russia putting an end to aerial attacks on Ukrainian energy targets and cargo ships could pave the way for negotiations to end the war”.

At last, there is a breakthrough to realism. Will the Government seize this opportunity to start some serious diplomacy? I mourn those who have died. What now moves me above all else is the thought of the thousands more young men, women and children yet to die if this war is not quickly brought to an end. I beg the Government to play their part in bringing the killing and destruction to a close.”