PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Missile Incident in Poland - 16 November 2022 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

With your permission, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will make a statement about the missile strike in Poland overnight.

At approximately 7 pm local time last night, there were missile explosions in a village in eastern Poland, approximately four miles from the border with Ukraine, killing two civilians and wounding four, during an extended Russian bombardment of Ukrainian territory.

As soon as I received the report, I contacted my Polish counterpart to express the sympathy and solidarity of the United Kingdom—I am sure the whole House will share that sentiment—and to offer our practical support. I then spoke to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in a trilateral call with my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary, while the Prime Minister was attending the G20 summit in Indonesia.

The Prime Minister immediately called President Duda of Poland to convey the UK’s condolences for the tragic loss of civilian life and to assure him of our unwavering support to a steadfast NATO ally. My right hon. Friend then spoke to President Zelensky about the latest situation and also attended an ad hoc meeting of G7 leaders called by President Biden to discuss the evolving situation.

This morning, I spoke to the Polish Foreign Minister and I commended Poland’s decisive, determined, but calm and professional response to the situation. It is wise to advise the House that, at this point, the full details of the incident are not complete, but, earlier today, Jens Stoltenberg, the NATO Secretary-General, said there was

“no indication that this was the result of a deliberate attack”.

He added that the incident was

“likely caused by a Ukrainian air defence missile fired to defend Ukrainian territory against Russian cruise missile attacks.”

Poland will lead the investigation to establish exactly what happened, and the UK stands ready to provide any practical or technical assistance. In the meantime, we will not rush to judgment; our response will always be led by the facts.

The House should be in no doubt that the only reason why missiles are flying through European skies and exploding in European villages is Russia’s barbaric invasion of Ukraine. Secretary-General Stoltenberg was absolutely right when he said today that what occurred in Poland is “not Ukraine’s fault” and that “Russia bears ultimate responsibility”.

Yesterday, Putin launched one of the heaviest attacks since the war began, firing wave upon wave of more than 80 missiles at Ukrainian cities, obliterating the homes of ordinary families, destroying critical national infrastructure and depriving millions of Ukrainians of power and heat just as the winter sets in. This brutal air campaign is Putin’s revenge for Ukraine’s successes on the battlefield, where Russian forces have been expelled from thousands of square miles of territory. Now he is trying to terrorise the people of Ukraine and break their will by leaving them shivering in cold and darkness. I have no doubt that he will be unsuccessful in that endeavour, but this is why Britain is helping Ukraine to strengthen its air defences, and we have provided more than 1,000 surface-to-air missiles thus far. I know that the House will be united in our support for Ukraine’s right to defend her territory and her people.

On Monday, I signed a memorandum of understanding as part of our £10 million commitment to help Ukraine rebuild its critical energy infrastructure. The tragic incident in Poland last night is ultimately the result of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine. That is the only reason why it has happened, and it would not have happened otherwise. That is why the UK and our allies stand in solidarity with Poland, and that is why we are determined to support the people of Ukraine until they prevail and their country is once again free. Madam Deputy Speaker, I commend this statement to the House.

I find myself in complete agreement with the shadow Foreign Secretary. It is absolutely right that we stand in solidarity with our allies—our formal allies in NATO, and also the Ukrainian people as they defend themselves. He speaks about endurance; I have spoken in the past about the need for strategic endurance, recognising that we must send the message to not just Vladimir Putin, but every other potential aggressor around the world, that we will defend the UN charter, international humanitarian law and the right of territorial integrity until the job is done. We must maintain that strategic endurance.

The shadow Foreign Secretary is absolutely right to ask about support for the international coalition that has condemned Russia’s actions. Some 141 countries voted for the resolution at the UN General Assembly at the start of the conflict, and 143 voted to condemn the illegal annexation of the eastern and southern oblasts in Ukraine. However, that coalition needs to be supported. I and the Ministers and officials within the Department regularly engage with countries in the global south that are worried about food security, fuel security and the availability of fertiliser. We have worked in conjunction with our international allies, particularly Turkey, to ensure that the Black sea grain initiative is supported. We hope that that initiative will be extended, and we are lobbying for that extension to occur so that Vladimir Putin cannot use hunger or the fear of hunger as leverage to support his illegal attempted invasion of Ukraine.

My right hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about the need to send an important message to the world, and indeed to our Ukrainian friends, that we are in it for the long haul—that we do have that strategic endurance, and we will support them until the job is done. My right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary and I have discussed this issue on a number of occasions; indeed, we will have high-level representation at the Ramstein donor conference, which is occurring as we speak, to ensure that we listen to the needs of Ukraine, and that both the scale and nature of our support are co-ordinated with Ukraine so that it can defend itself against the evolving threats it sees from Russia.

I would also like to put on record my recognition of the fact that right across the House, including from the SNP Benches, we have had a unanimity of voice on the world stage. If Vladimir Putin felt that his aggression in Ukraine could in any way drive wedges between people who are like-minded on these issues, he was wrong. That is true in this House, and it is true on the international stage.

I thank the hon. Member for the points he has made. He has made an incredibly important point about the evolving threat. As I said in my response to my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), it is now clear that as Russia sees failures on the battlefield, it is moving to attacks from the air. We have provided surface-to-air defence missile systems and AMRAAM air-to-air defence missile systems. We will be looking at further air defence donations that can come from the international community and also, importantly, making sure there is integration in the air defence cover that Ukraine is able to provide. We know what Putin intends to do—as I have said, he intends to starve and freeze the Ukrainians into submission—and we have to stand shoulder to shoulder with them in order to prevent him from doing so.

My right hon. and gallant Friend makes an incredibly important point about the importance of our collective defence. I remind the House that the NATO Secretary-General’s assessment is that this was not a deliberate attack, so in this instance, article 5 would not be the most appropriate response. Again, I commend the Polish Government on their swift and decisive, but calm and measured, response to this incident. I had a conversation this morning with our permanent representative at NATO in Brussels; NATO also acted swiftly and calmly by discussing this incident, and the response will be calibrated to the facts on the ground. However, as I say, my right hon. and gallant Friend is right that our collective defence is a cornerstone of our safety.

I remind the right hon. Gentleman that calls for halting the war were not emanating from Moscow when the Russians felt that they were on the front foot. They were not calling to halt the war when those tanks were surrounding Kyiv; nor were they calling to halt the war when they thought that President Zelensky’s Government would collapse. I find it interesting that calls to halt the war are coming from certain places now that Russia is on the back foot and losing territory in the east and south of Ukraine.

It is important to make the point that ceasing a conflict is not in itself a neutral act. The Ukrainians have been attacked and murdered, their cities damaged, and their critical national infrastructure put beyond use. It is incredibly important that the message is sent—both to President Putin and to other potential aggressors around the world—that those who start conflicts such as this have to be prepared for the consequences of the nation defending itself and its friends around the world helping it to do so.

Ultimately, of course, we want this war to come to an end. We would prefer for it to come to an end quickly, but it has to come to an end on terms that are acceptable to the Ukrainian people, and only the Ukrainian people can decide when that time is.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right in her assessment of what Vladimir Putin is attempting to do. I remind the House that the rocket attacks we saw overnight were targeting locations deep to the west of Ukraine, hundreds of miles away from the line of contact—specifically, they were targeting critical national infrastructure. At the start of the conflict, it was our anti-tank missiles—the NLAW missile systems—that helped the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Now, they need air defence and energy generation, and we will continue to supply them with what they need until they prevail in this conflict.

I remind the hon. Lady that that scheme is closed and has been for some time. Obviously, visas are a matter for the Home Office rather than the Foreign Office, but I remind her that, in a number of instances, people come to this country because they are fleeing persecution in the countries of their birth. I know that, for a number of British nationals of Russian heritage, that was very much the case.

I am very proud that the UK was one of the first countries to bring in sanctions specifically to target the money people around Vladimir Putin and to choke off the supply of funds that helped him to prosecute this conflict. We will continue to work in conjunction and co-ordination with our international allies to do likewise.

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important point about the multiple things that are at stake in this conflict. We have seen military lives lost, civilian lives lost and, sadly, in ground that has been ceded by the Russian military, what appears to be evidence of widespread and systematic human rights abuses. Those are the things that we are defending against, but in addition, we are defending the UN charter and the concept of adherence to international law. As he rightly said, we in the UK have been the recipients of cyber-attacks and attacks on our homeland that we have attributed to Vladimir Putin and the Russian regime. All those things are at stake all at once. We have to defend ourselves against the full range of threats, and he is absolutely right to highlight that.

The hon. Lady makes an important point. Her words echo those of the Prime Minister and mine on the international stage. What we have seen, through Vladimir Putin’s attempt to use energy supply to blackmail countries that are supporting Ukraine in its self-defence, is a warning that we have to wean ourselves off hydrocarbons—particularly those through which we are reliant on autocratic states such as Russia.

That incentivises us to work at renewable energy generation and storage here in the UK, and to work with our international friends and partners to wean the world off hydrocarbons, which is exactly what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and I did when we went to Sharm El Sheikh for COP27. It is one of the points that he is discussing with the membership of the G20 in Indonesia at the moment. We have been at the forefront of many of the green energy generation technologies. We are absolutely committed to making sure that we help the Ukrainians to defend themselves in the here and now, and that we all defend each other through a greener and more sustainable energy mix in future.

My hon. and gallant Friend, who has made a career, both in uniform and out, of analysing these things, is absolutely right in his assessment of the immediate tactics that the Russians are endeavouring to use. By extension, he is also right about the need to help the Ukrainians with their air defence systems. I am assured by my right hon. and gallant Friend the Minister for Armed Forces that exactly that issue will be discussed at Ramstein, at military-to-military level and at Foreign Minister-to-Foreign Minister level. The equipment and the integration of that equipment are key, and will remain an absolute priority for us.

The hon. Lady will understand that we maintain lines of communication wherever possible and practical. The House will remember my right hon. Friend the Defence Secretary updating the House a number of weeks ago on a conversation that he had had with the Russian Government’s Defence Minister Shoigu. She and the House will understand why at this stage I am not willing to go into the details of all the lines of communication, but I assure them that we maintain our desire to avoid miscalculation and unnecessary escalation, and to give the opportunity for more sensible decisions to be made in the Kremlin.

I can assure my hon. Friend that we are looking at the systems produced in the UK that are used by the British armed forces, but we are also working with our international partners to procure these systems from wherever in the world they are available, because the Ukrainians need them. They need the numbers and they need them now.

The hon. Lady will understand the long-standing convention that we do not discuss intelligence matters on the Floor of the House. I can none the less assure her that the threats and the risks that the heads of our security and intelligence agencies have put in the public domain are absolutely understood by the UK Government and our allies, and we continue to work very, very closely with our defence and security partners around the world on precisely the issue she highlights.

I am not able to give a full update because the meetings in Indonesia are still going on, but I spoke with our right hon. Friend the Prime Minister late last night and I can assure my hon. Friend and the House that this is very much in the thoughts of leaders at the G20. Obviously, the conversations at the G20 cannot just be about Russia and Ukraine, but the implications for the global south and for many member countries of the G20 are very much at the forefront of our thinking, particularly for energy security and food supplies and the need to ensure that the hungry people of the world are not made more hungry as Vladimir Putin uses their hunger and their need for energy as leverage in his brutal war of aggression against the Ukrainians.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Ukraine has the right to defend itself against aggression. The Ukrainians enjoy our enduring support as they defend themselves against aggression. The only reason the missile systems are being engaged in the border area between eastern Poland and western Ukraine is Russia’s attacks on targets in western Ukraine. This is the fault of Russia; the deaths are the result of Russia’s action. It is Vladimir Putin who has blood on his hands because of his illegal invasion of Ukraine.

My hon. Friend is exactly right. In addition to the military and economic support, we have provided and will continue to provide humanitarian support to Ukraine. Just yesterday, I signed a memorandum of understanding on support valued at £10 million to help the Ukrainians to rebuild the energy infrastructure being targeted and damaged by Russian attacks, and we will continue to provide that support.

My hon. and gallant Friend makes the incredibly important point that the Ukrainians are the ones who are defending themselves. It is the Ukrainian people who are putting their lives at risk on the frontline in the conflict against the Russian invasion, and it is the Ukrainian people, right across Ukraine and, indeed, beyond its borders, whose strength, perseverance and incredible bravery is enabling the pushing back of the Russian military out of eastern and southern Ukraine. We must ensure that we help the Ukrainian people to maintain the morale they need to persevere in the defence of their homeland.

First, I commend my hon. Friend for the generosity he has displayed in hosting a Ukrainian family in wonderful North Norfolk, which is a part of the country I know well. It is a privilege to serve alongside him on these green Benches. I know that a number of Members from all parties have done likewise, and that is to their credit.

My hon. Friend’s story is incredibly moving and he is absolutely right that behind the statistics, facts and numbers are people. We have to ensure that, on their behalf, we stick with it and maintain our willingness to do what is right. Even though we in the UK will go through difficult times this winter domestically, our difficulties pale into insignificance compared with the difficulties faced by people right across Ukraine, not just in the east and south where the land conflict is ongoing. We of course have a duty to help and support people who are here in the UK, but while doing so we also have a duty to help and support the brave people of Ukraine as they defend themselves against the brutal, illegal and unjustified invasion of their homeland by Russia.