Noble Lords laugh, but they clearly do not know this. The article puts the crisis into its broader historical context. I will put copies of both these articles in your Lordships’ Library as well, and I trust that those who have been sniggering will read them.
I have time to mention one other point on why the Russian people have been uniquely disadvantaged since 1989. None of the countries that lived under communism had access to what we call civil society—no freedom of speech, no independent judiciary, no charities, no free market, no private insurance and no democracy. When we set up our know-how funds in 1990 to help the peoples thus enslaved to recover these vital things, I served on our initiative in Poland to help the newly liberated Poles to set up a free insurance market. I was lucky because we could find Poles who remembered civil society, including life and other insurance, for example, from before 1945—before the Iron Curtain cut them off from the civilised world. So, we were able to help them to resurrect it without too much difficulty. It was not so in the then-new Russia, whose people had been deprived of civil society for another whole generation—another 45 years. So, you could not find anyone there who remembered it. So, once again, the Russian people were on the wrong side of history.
I conclude by agreeing with noble Lords who think that Putin may have taken leave even of his KGB senses, that he is not supported by the majority of the Russian people and that, if we and others can impose sanctions that are stiff enough, we may be able to bring him and his cronies down. We could then work for a new and prosperous relationship with the Russian people, who remain our natural friends.
1.59 pm