Ukraine-Russia crisis: The UK, mired in Russian money and influence, ignored warning signs that Vladimir Putin was a serious threat to peace in Europe – Christine Jardine MP

The roar of the Tornado jet seemed to be over our heads instantly. No warning. Just sudden, earth-shaking noise.

Boris Johnson and Vladimir Putin meet on the sidelines of a peace summit in Berlin in January 2020 (Picture: Alexey Nikolsky/Sputnik/AFP via Getty Images)

My four-year-old niece ran screaming while my daughter grabbed me and buried her head in my arms. I was so shocked I struggled to keep calm for them.

And that jet was just there to entertain us with a fly past as part of the village gala.

That thought came back to me this week as I sat and listened to the Prime Minister’s statement about the escalating tensions and the threat of a Russian invasion of Ukraine.

What terror could the next few weeks or months bring for the children of Ukraine. My daughter, now 25, can still recall how terrifying that sudden, all-encompassing noise was. So fast that there was no time to understand what was happening. What must it be like when you know what it is and that it’s not on your side.

As I write, we are still hoping that this might all be bluff and bluster by Vladimir Putin. An attempt to bully Ukraine into line and rule out any consideration of Nato membership.

But it is still a terrifying situation that, almost 80 years on, we are once again facing the prospect of a major war on European soil. That a tension we thought had been consigned to the past more than 30 years ago has re-emerged to threaten the stability of a new generation.

There will be those who still dismiss the threat. Insist that we are falling into old Cold War rhetoric.

But I wonder if they have looked closely at Putin’s behaviour and his carefully manufactured narrative against his neighbour and former member of the Soviet Union.

Last year he called Russia and the Ukraine one nation, and we are told it is “mandatory”, according to his Foreign Secretary, that Ukraine doesn’t become a member of Nato.

There is hugely concerning intelligence about the concentration of Russian troops on the Ukranian border, more than 100,000 of them, and a larger force than has been deployed against that nation before.

Ukraine is an independent country and they have made it clear that they will resist if invaded.

It is horrifying to contemplate the firepower which could engulf its people and their cities if Putin cannot be persuaded to step back from the brink.

None of us wants a return to the tension of the Cold War that so many of us remember from the 1970s and this current crisis is not of our making.

But we need to stand with the people of Ukraine. Stand united with our Nato and European allies in the face of what is clearly a real and present threat.

Neither do we need to look beyond our own shores or recent history for evidence of Putin’s scant regard for international borders or the safety of foreign citizens.

It is just short of three years since Salisbury was the scene of a chemical attack on a Russian double agent Sergei Skripal and his daughter in which a totally innocent and unconnected woman died.

A deadly nerve agent, Novichok, was used on British streets and thousands of people put at potential risk.

If we were in any doubt about the danger of not taking this crisis seriously, then surely the evidence of that experience, and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko in London, should persuade us.

Certainly Nato powers have not been slow to recognise the need for action.

The US last week warned that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, built to transport gas from Russia to Germany, would be stopped from opening if an invasion were launched.

And western allies, including the UK, have made it clear that serious sanctions against Russia would follow any military action against Ukraine.

But when foreign ministers from our key allies met for talks more than a week ago, our Foreign Secretary was missing, and was again not in attendance at a similar meeting a few days later.

At potentially the most critical point in Europe’s military history since 1945, it feels as if our government is missing in action.

We need more than stern words from the Prime Minister in the Commons. We cannot allow any suggestion that this threat of sanctions is not real.

And you don’t have to look beyond our borders to see where else the government is failing – it is turning a blind eye to Russian influence in this country to the point where our capital is dismissively referred to as “Londongrad”.

Boris Johnson blocked the publication of the crucial report on Russian interference in our country for more than a year. Now 18 months on, not a single one of the report’s recommendations for the government has been implemented.

This conflict, if it happens, will have been years in the making. It has been a slow creep towards a potential war on the edge of the continent of Europe. But that is where, frighteningly, we now find ourselves.

For too long, we ignored the signs that Putin was not a man with a vision of a liberal Europe, or for that matter Russia.

As a country we are strongest when working with others. This week the Prime Minister revealed he had reminded Mr Putin that at crucial moments in history our countries have stood together against aggressors.

Ukraine has asked for nothing in this crisis but to be left in peace and to pursue a safe and prosperous future for its children.

We must do what we can to ensure that happens.

Christine Jardine is the Scottish Liberal Democrat MP for Edinburgh West

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