Following the Prime Minister’s statement to the House of Commons on the UK’s response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Jonathan Djanogly tells MPs that over the last 14 years the UK and EU have been complacent with regard to Russia and we must never let that happen again.
Mr Jonathan Djanogly (Huntingdon) (Con)
While this terrible, appalling incident is, of course, directly the cause of Russia, it is appropriate that we also recognise that over the last 14 years, the UK, the EU and the US collectively have not been attentive to Russia in the way that we should have been. Can my right hon. Friend now say that, whatever happened in the past, moving forward we are not going to let Russia fall between our fingers again?
The Prime Minister (Boris Johnson)
The lesson of 2014 is that the whole of the west failed to respond in the way that we should have done. I am afraid that it was quite wrong that, when a sovereign country was invaded and part of that country was occupied, we tried to manage the situation with various diplomatic processes, which, in the end, produced absolutely nothing except, finally, this catastrophic invasion today. We have learned a bitter lesson about how to deal with Vladimir Putin.