Our tolerance of Russian corruption in Britain fatally clouded our judgment
Unless a miracle occurs, we are witnessing the destruction of Ukraine as a free and democratic state of 44 million citizens at the hands of a dictator. Vladimir Putin refers to Ukraine as “a dagger pointed at the heart of Russia” not because of any military threat it has ever posed to his country, but because of the values its form of governance represents.
For the west, this is the biggest failure of statecraft and deterrence since 1939. No one in the UK government should be surprised at what has happened. I remember sitting round the table of the National Security Council in 2014 after Putin’s violent annexation of the Crimea, where we concluded that, in the light of this gross violation of international law, he would repeat such an action if given a chance.
Yet in the eight years that have followed, we have failed entirely to craft an adequate response to Putin. Neither the recent British programme to train and engage with the Ukrainian military, nor the empty last-minute ministerial rhetoric challenging the Russian leader’s threats, can conceal the truth: that we have allowed Putin to conclude that the destruction of Ukraine comes at an affordable price.
This failure is starkly illustrated by our attitude to Russian influence and corruption in the UK. The intelligence and security committee inquiry on Russia, whose open report the prime minister suppressed for nine months on an entirely bogus pretext, was presented with the clearest evidence that Russia saw no distinction between economic and state interests, and that it used elements of its diaspora in the UK to further its interests.
Meanwhile, we tolerated their financial corruption, and encouraged the use of London as a centre to launder the proceeds.
This in turn
Read more on theguardian.com
