My Lords, it is always a pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Ricketts, who brings to the table the twin virtues of knowledge and experience. So too does the noble Lord, Lord Sedwill, who made an outstanding maiden speech, upon which I congratulate him. I, and I am sure the House as a whole, very much look forward to his contributions in future.
I find it hard to find language consistent with the conventions of this House to condemn adequately the behaviour of Mr Putin, those who tolerate him, those who support him and those who implement his policies. One expression in particular has caused me a considerable sense of distaste, and that is the suggestion that his purpose is the “denazification” of Ukraine. Mr Putin is the political descendant of those who signed the Ribbentrop pact, and the military descendant of those who sat on their hands across the river while the Nazis destroyed the Warsaw ghetto and everyone in it.
The truth, as we know, is that it was never about NATO membership or any threat to Russia; those were convenient sideshows that brought representatives
of three permanent members of the Security Council almost as supplicants to the court of Mr Putin. It was only after their deception that the truth was revealed. It was and is about Russia and Putin. It is about the restoration of empire and the reputational reward for the would-be emperor, finally revealed in a 5,000-word essay and in a lengthy and at times, frankly, incoherent speech. We are told that Ukraine is part of Russia, created by Lenin; I wonder if Lenin understood that this would be attributed to him some years later. We are told that it is not a nation in its own right. Then why is it a member of the United Nations? We are told that its inhabitants are Russians masquerading as Europeans, with the assistance of a malign NATO and an equally unhelpful EU, who must be encouraged to return to the fold and brought back to the bosom of Mother Russia. “And how will we do it?” asks Mr Putin. “We will do it with helicopter gunships, cruise missiles and heavy armour.”
The truth is that what we are seeing is a new doctrine. Indeed, Mr Putin claims that it is a new doctrine: he calls it “peacekeeping”, and it is of such intellectual integrity that it has acquired the endorsement of President Trump. But we should also appreciate that that doctrine has already been refined in the intervention in Georgia, in the annexation of Crimea, in support of independence for the Donbass, and by being an unhelpful supporter of those who are antagonistic to the Dayton agreement in the settlement of Bosnia.
The truth is that we are witnessing a form of 21st-century colonialism. It involves destruction, it certainly involves death and it involves the displacement of citizens. But the problem for us is that Mr Putin will not be satisfied. Like Oliver Twist, he will want more, and Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia may be thought by him to be easy pickings, not least because of the advantage of the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad being so close geographically. These, of course, are members of NATO and are entitled to the protection of Article 5. If it gets to that, in NATO we will need professionalism, leadership and a unity of purpose—perhaps greater than has ever been required of the alliance. I leave your Lordships with this thought: sanctions will not be sufficient.
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