Hansard

I confirm that the Scottish Conservatives will support the Government motion, because it is essential that we come together to condemn Russian aggression.

The news that we woke up to this morning—that Russian troops had entered Ukraine, that cruise missiles and military aircraft had attacked its major cities and that military and civilian lives had already been lost—can only be described as utterly devastating. It was utterly devastating for the people of Ukraine who find themselves the victims of an irredentist dictatorship and its warped view of the world, and utterly devastating for the rest of our continent, as the peace in Europe that we have all taken for granted was shattered by the most serious conflict for decades.

There must now be the swiftest and strongest response from the United Kingdom and every nation that values democracy and international law to make the action as costly as possible for Russia and especially for the regime that has ordered the invasion. That is why I welcome the Prime Minister’s statement that the United Kingdom will introduce a massive package of further economic sanctions to hobble the Russian economy. As our debate closes at 5 o’clock tonight, the Prime Minister will make a statement in the UK Parliament setting that out in more detail. We need a similar response from all our allies and partners, and I welcome those that have already been made.

Beyond that, the United Kingdom Government has provided substantial assistance to Ukraine throughout the crisis. That includes training for more than 21,000 members of its armed forces; a security assistance package to increase Ukraine’s ability to defend itself, including antitank missiles; £1.7 billion of financial support to help to develop and expand the Ukrainian navy; £88 million to support the Ukrainian economy and reduce its reliance on Russian gas; and £40 million to fight corruption and strengthen the Ukrainian judiciary.

However, it is clear that, despite those actions, Putin is determined to continue the conflict regardless of the cost to the people of Ukraine and, indeed, the people of Russia. Therefore, we must realise that we no longer live in a world in which we can assume rationality and reason in our international affairs. For years, we believed that conventional warfare between two sovereign countries would never happen again, because it was unthinkable that anyone could actually want war. However, as we have seen today, that belief in a rules-based international system, in which countries negotiate disputes rather than resort to conflict, is no longer an assumption that we can rely on. The world has become a more dangerous place than it was yesterday, and we view with trepidation what tomorrow might bring.

That is why it is important that we stand with our NATO allies, particularly those in eastern Europe. Countries such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are former parts of the Soviet Union that the Russian regime still considers part of its sphere of influence. In other countries, such as Poland and Romania, which border Ukraine, the citizens are now living in fear of an escalation of the conflict and further Russian aggression. The UK has already made major commitments to the security of those states, but it is important that we now redouble those efforts and reaffirm our article 5 commitment that an attack on any NATO member is an attack on all members.

Here in the UK, we must also make every effort to tackle Russian disinformation and close loopholes in our financial system that allow Russian oligarchs and state-owned companies to circumnavigate sanctions.

Other dictatorships across the world will be studying our response to the crisis and testing our resolve. We need to strengthen our military and take difficult decisions economically to isolate rogue states such as Russia, because if we and the rest of the democratic world do not defend our rules-based international system and do not champion liberal values, no one else will.

However, it is important today that we do not give any impression that we have written off the Ukrainian people. There can be no hint that we or the rest of the western world have abandoned them to Russian aggression, because at the heart of this conflict is the right of a democratic country to choose its destiny.

Although we were all shocked by the violence today, we must remember that that conflict has been going on for years. As the First Minister said, in 2014, after the Euromaidan protests removed a corrupt pro-Kremlin regime, Russia annexed Crimea and supported separatists in the Donbas region in their war with Ukraine. That war alone has claimed 14,000 lives to date and devastated a region that was previously the industrial heartland of the country.

Now the Ukrainian people face the darkest day in their history for a generation, and we must continue to offer them our full and unwavering support in any way that we can as the conflict continues. That must mean continued supplies and equipment to help them to defend themselves and their country. It must also mean humanitarian aid and shelter for those people who are already fleeing or attempting to flee the cities. The 20,000 Ukrainian nationals who call the UK their home, and might have family and friends at risk because of this truly awful war, should know that they are also in all our thoughts and prayers.

When I woke this morning, like many, I felt shocked by what I was seeing on the news: horrific scenes of cruise missiles hitting apartment blocks, tanks rolling over border posts and thousands fleeing Kyiv in their cars. Those images, which belong in the past and should have been unbelievable in the 21st century, have become reality again today. I also felt a deep sadness that the peace in Europe, which was won by the blood of our grandparents and the generations that went before us, has broken once more. Our children will grow up in a less secure and safe world.

The people of Ukraine are having their freedom to choose their national destiny taken away by a foreign autocratic dictatorship. Many of them will lose their lives in the conflict or carry the physical and emotional scars with them for ever.

We on the Conservative benches join the rest of this Parliament and the UK Parliament in condemning in the strongest possible terms Vladimir Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine. It is important that the whole UK is united in the action that we will have to take in the coming days, weeks and months to stand up to this renewed era of aggressive expansionism, irredentism and great power politics, and absolutely ensure that liberalism, democracy and international law triumph once again. We stand with the people of Ukraine and we support the motion in the name of the First Minister.