I shall try to rise to the challenge of fitting as many major international crises into six minutes as other hon. Members have managed to do so well.
In Ukraine, we face a profound crisis on a number of levels. For the people of Ukraine, it is clearly a great humanitarian disaster. For the Ukrainian nation already suffering the annexation of Crimea, there is the continued risk of the loss of territory and the establishment of a Russian puppet state within its borders. The independence of the Ukrainian nation, which is guaranteed by the United Kingdom through the Budapest memorandum, could be rendered meaningless by military and economic intimidation from its more powerful neighbour.
For the free countries of eastern Europe, particularly the Baltic states, this crisis has resurrected old fears of Soviet-style intervention and domination. I welcome the consensus in the House and in the NATO declaration at the weekend on the absolute article 5 commitment to Estonia, Lithuania and Latvia. To draw a really ominous historical parallel without being too melodramatic, we need to communicate that absolute commitment much more clearly than our predecessors did 100 years ago to the central powers. The misunderstanding and underestimation of people’s willingness to react was a major contributor to the July crisis that led to the first world war.