My Lords, there is an old saying: in Russia, everything changes in 20 years and nothing changes in 200 years. It maybe gets to the heart of the recent crisis, when the unthinkable has become the inevitable.
Over the last few weeks I have been wondering, with the rest of the world, what is inside the head of the man who has, on his own, ordered the violent invasion of a sovereign nation state in this year 2022; whom I met nine times in the Kremlin and in Brussels; with whom I did good business and with whom we created the 20-strong NATO-Russia Council, with Russia as an equal at that table; who personally signed accords guaranteeing the right of nations, and Ukraine specifically, to choose their own
“inherent right to choose the means to ensure their own security, the inviolability of borders”;
and who asked me about when we were going to invite Russia to join NATO.
So I ask this today: what irrational thought process has changed that man into the monster who violates the sovereignty—indeed, the existence—of a neighbouring country? What changed that man of the KGB, who this week publicly humiliated the head of his own foreign intelligence service in the full sight of a dismayed world? The answer to many people, and widely accepted, is that he is paranoid about next-door Ukraine becoming a member of NATO. I disagree. I do not think that the organisation that I used to head is the fuel on the Putin fire; it is just a useful demon to scare the Russian public. His real and well-justified fear is of democracy. He has seen how the aspiration of former Communist countries to join the European Union changes these countries permanently and fundamentally. The EU is, in fact, the bogey.
Nations becoming democracies, with a free press, free elections, the rule of law and mixed economies, are a serious challenge to the Putin model of brutal authoritarianism. In his fevered mind, if Ukraine travels in that direction, as indeed it wants to do, then what about the rising revolts in Belarus, Armenia, Kazakhstan
and Azerbaijan? It is getting, for him, much too close to home. This attack—this breach of international law and of the UN Charter, this heavy-handed assault on a fellow Slavic nation—is actually a sign of weakness, of vulnerability in the face of an inexorable tide of democracy.
So what do we do now? First, we stand absolutely firm and resolute with the Ukrainian people. Secondly, we should finance and supply the resistance to these invaders—make Ukraine the new Afghanistan for Russia. Thirdly, we must build our own defences, protect our own democratic values and imprint in the mind of Putin and his generals the inviolability of the Article 5 guarantee, and the danger to their motherland if they ever thought of crossing that line. Fourthly, we must mobilise the whole world against this outrage and make sure that the sanctions bite savagely and affect the Kremlin’s thinking.
Finally, I remind the House of what President Putin said in May 2002, standing beside me in Rome at the NATO-Russia summit. He said this:
“Russia always had a crucial role in world affairs. The problem for our country has been, however, that over a very long period of time a situation arose in which Russia was on one side and the other side was … the rest of the world.”
He continued:
“Nothing good came of that confrontation between us and the rest of the world.”
These were wise words in 2002; they are even more true today.
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