Global Britain: The UK Response in Ukraine
Panellists
Kirsty McNeill, Executive Director of Policy, Advocacy and Campaigns, Save the Children
Flick Drummond MP
Alicia Kearns MP
Chairman Ed Royce
Ryan Henson, CEO of Coalition for Global Prosperity (Chair)
Ryan Henson, CEO of Coalition for Global Prosperity, welcomed guests to the events and introduced the Coalition saying they passionately believed that an international aid strategy, along with an effective defence and foreign affairs strategy, could show Britain at its best and offer stability to the world.
Flick Drummond MP gave her opening remarks and said the response from the UK had been unequivocally supported and it was important that Ukraine got all it required militarily. She said the troops were well trained and what they currently required was fairly basic.
It was important for the world economy that Ukraine also economically recovered, she said, as they supplied 10 percent of the world’s grain.
On refugees, Drummond said it was vital neighbouring states were supported economically. The wider consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine had led to other countries applying to join NATO, which meant that President Putin has already failed in his objective.
“It is important that the message goes out to Putin”, she said.
Kirsty McNeill, Save the Children, said Save had been working in Ukraine since 2014 but their work had dramatically changed. Buildings with children in them were being deliberately targeted and at least 250 children had been documented as dead, she said.
On average 20 schools have been attacked every day, she advised.
In Mariupol, they were working with people who had not had access to clean water or clean clothing. Many children were in a catatonic state she said. McNeill said they never expected to do this work within Europe.
There was hope, she advised, because they knew how to respond. McNeill said the UK Government must provide adequate humanitarian assistance – that is not at the expense of other crises globally – and return to 0.7 percent aid spending target. She said they must also champion justice, as children did not have a champion for a children’s justice in the war.
Chairman Ed Royce, who served as a member of the United States House of Representatives from California, said the UK had been a “great leader” in their support for Ukraine. The United States had provided $54bn in assistance, he said, but said the war was intent on creating food insecurity in Ukraine and further afield.
Royce said there was a pattern of Russia trying to block ports to prevent grain from getting to other countries. Many countries were dependent on Ukrainian grain, and an increase in the price of food was inevitable. This meant that millions more people were being pushed into food insecurity, he said.
He warned that “this challenge was just beginning”. This could be a “crisis which compounds upon itself”, he said. Royce said it was children who would carry this malnutrition throughout their lives.
There needed to be a strategy of how to get grain outside of Ukraine, he said.
Alicia Kearns MP, member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, said the UK should be very proud but needed to start looking forward now. She said she was very concerned that a lot of the aid funding had not been getting through as there was not enough presence on the ground.
She agreed with previous commitments about the importance of justice and saying there should be a body set up that looked specifically at war crimes that involved rape or sexual assault. Kearns said lessons should be learned from the Balkans, and the use of rape as a weapon of war must be prosecuted effectively. She said this new organisation could be in Ukraine right now if the UK established it, Kearns said.
Kearns said it was important to encourage defections in Russia and ensure that they were heard about in Russia. Kearns said it was not enough to say Russia was better than us at information campaigns and the UK must do more to ensure messages got through to the Russian people.
She said Turkey was currently putting its own interests above others and said the UK must give more support to Kurdish people. She also said more attention must be paid to Moldova.
Domestically, Kearns accused the First Minister of Scotland of undermining the Union and said the nuclear deterrent could only be in Scotland and that they were fundamental to our security.
It was also very important we didn’t push China and Russia closer together, Kearns said, and that we needed to stop saying “Putin must lose” and that it was up to Ukraine to decide when the war ended.
Henson asked McNeill about what aid was needed, McNeill said people within Ukraine needed immediate water, food, medicine, and there was also mental health and education support needed.
As about criminal gangs, Alicia Kearns said Theresa May was really focussed on ensuring crime groups did not target the chaos impacting Ukraine and mass displacement. She said it was very easy to identify children who were in danger, and Interpol needed to be utilised. She also said the UK needed to take minors who were coming with siblings immediately. She said she had been regularly promised by the Government that this policy would be changed, and it hasn’t yet.
Chairman Ed Royce said reporting was essential and policy makers needed to be looking at how to encourage this in the East and encourage Russian dissenters to come forward.
World Vision asked what the UK could do to create global security and development in other countries, particularly in light of a coordinated aid strategy.
Flick Drummond said there was a big issue with Russian mercenaries involved in other countries and she expected the aid spending to return to 0.7 percent shortly. However, she said it was a balancing act in order to justify aid spending to the electorate in a cost-of-living crisis.
Alicia Kearns has said if we did not fight for multilateral organisations then we had failed, and she said there was a real opportunity to create a “respective” and fair system of support for countries struggling.
