President Zelensky has relied on Britain to lead the charge of the Allies, holding off the illegal Russian invasion and thence to preventing the destruction of schools and hospitals. It’s a dark portent of Labour’s leadership that he now has now indicated concerns over wavering support.
To see our new foreign secretary in Kyiv speaking, but saying nothing of consequence, is hard for those of us who have been helping Ukraine from the start. It must be even more devastating for the rank and file in Ukraine who have lost so much and face a third freezing and dark winter.
Who is advising David Lammy? For the want of a Storm Shadow or two, the Ukrainian population are at a point of potential Russian subjugation. Missiles, glide bombs and long-range drones have been hammering into hospitals, schools and the power grid for months. This chaos could have been brought to an abrupt halt, if the UK unshackled Ukraine and allowed them to strike these threats from the Russian airfields from whence they came.
Presumably, the foreign secretary is concerned too much by escalation, and feels the need to appease the Left of his party by focusing on halting some arms licenses to Israel.
After 30 months of threats from the Kremlin and their gangsters of nuclear attack on the UK if we provide air defence missiles to Kyiv, even the most unworldly ministers must recognise this is as “bluff and bluster”.
The threat of Storm Shadow use in Russia will push those missiles out of range of the civilian targets Putin wants to hit in Ukraine. The fact that it also makes it impossible for Putin to launch tactical nuclear missiles against the country should have made this a no-brainer from the very beginning.
It is no good to keep saying we will support Ukraine, “unerringly until the job is done”, and then not do it. Putin is not the complete fool that some in Westminster seem to think. When he looked west in February 2022, he saw no conventional deterrence to stop him attacking. When he looks west today, he sees dithering and hot air and nothing to take his foot off Ukraine’s proverbial jugular.
It is no good for our new government to expect the US to do the heavy lifting and cover for our lack of political resolve. The US are a lot less worried by Putin in Ukraine than we are, as they are 4000 miles away and well out of range – we are not. Still, the mood music of the press conference in Kyiv communicated that the UK was firmly in the passenger seat, with Blinken throwing a few crumbs of praise our way.
It is much easier to defeat the Russian army in Russia than it will be in the fields and towns of Europe. Perhaps a history special advisor, would be useful to remind the new government of what happened the last time a tyrant attacked west across Europe towards these islands: perhaps then Labour might be not so squeamish about British missiles attacking Russian forces.