PARLIAMENTARY DEBATE
Ukraine - 28 October 2025 (Commons/Commons Chamber)

On Friday, I welcomed President Zelensky and the coalition of the willing to a meeting at the Foreign Office chaired by the Prime Minister, to demonstrate our continued support for Ukraine in the face of Russian aggression. Since I set out in this House new, stronger sanctions against Russia’s two largest oil producers, Rosneft and Lukoil, I am pleased to say that the US has followed suit, and the EU has also introduced further sanctions. We need to tighten the economic vice on Russia in order to bring Putin to the table and get a pathway to peace.

I welcome the UK’s leadership on the issue of Russian sovereign assets. What further conversations is the Foreign Secretary having with her international counterparts to accelerate that work and ensure that Russia pays for its illegal war?

The issue of Russian sovereign assets is an extremely important one. Both I and the Chancellor have had many discussions with our counterparts, particularly in Europe but also through the G7. We want to be able to mobilise those sovereign assets in order to support Ukraine. The EU has set out proposals for reparation loans, which we think are the sensible way forward, because fundamentally, Russia needs to pay for the damage it is doing to Ukraine.

I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s comments about Russian frozen assets. She will possibly agree with me that the US is an increasingly unreliable partner for Ukraine. Can she tell me what discussions she has had with European counterparts about securing Ukrainians’ long-range missiles with European partners so that they can better defend themselves?

This issue was discussed as part of the coalition of the willing, where NATO was present, as well as many countries from Europe and across the world. Those discussions were about continued military support to Ukraine, as well as this crucial economic pressure. The US package of sanctions that has now been announced, which is similar to the package that we announced on Rosneft and Lukoil, is extremely important, because we need to choke off access to the market for Russian oil and gas.

I call the Chair of the Select Committee.

I was pleased yesterday to see the Foreign Secretary writing in The Times:

“Now is the time for international action to use Russia’s frozen sovereign assets to support Ukraine.”

The trouble is that over the past three years, eight months and four days there has been a lot of talk about using these assets, and nothing has happened. I know that the Foreign Secretary knows that the last thing that Ukraine needs is warm words; we need action, particularly against a background of the Russians renewing their bombing campaign against civilians in the cities. The question is: if there is going to be a plan, when will it happen? When will this considerable sum of money be used to rearm and rebuild Ukraine?

I echo my right hon. Friend’s comments about the civilian attacks that we have seen, including the most horrendous attack on a kindergarten in Ukraine. She is right that we need to ensure that these assets are mobilised. Obviously a lot of that needs to be done in conjunction with the European Union, where many of the assets are currently held. The EU has had a series of discussions and made significant progress through the work done by the EU Commission. Many of the other individual nations are pressing to go further, and we are working closely with them to do so. We need to get this investment mobilised to support Ukraine.

The US President was willing to meet the Russian President in Budapest, in spite of the fact that we gave assurances in Budapest in that 1994 memorandum that have since been ignored. Although that meeting will not now go ahead, can the Foreign Secretary share the Government’s latest thinking about future security guarantees for Ukraine?

Security guarantees remain an important part of our support for Ukraine. One reason that the coalition of the willing was brought together was to set out what those security guarantees would be. That will continue to be the case, working with the US to do so. The most immediate issue is to ensure sufficient economic pressure, particularly on oil and gas, to bring Putin back to the table. While President Zelensky has said that he is willing to negotiate and support an immediate ceasefire, President Putin is simply escalating the war.

I call the shadow Minister.

We have these discussions with countries across the world, urging them to support sanctions or to reduce their dependence on Russian oil and gas, which will reduce those imports and help us choke off the supply of Russian oil and gas from the market. That is why we have also begun to sanction designated refineries not just in Russia itself, but across the world.