Thank you, Mr Chair.<\/p>\n
Last week Ukraine marked Defenders\u2019 Day.\u00a0 This is a day when Ukrainians honour those who defend them and remember those who gave their lives so that Ukraine could live.<\/p>\n
Today millions of Ukrainians stand united in the face of Russia\u2019s illegal war of aggression.\u00a0 Once again, they are defending their statehood, their culture and their independence.\u00a0 On these grounds alone, Ukraine\u2019s fight is an honourable one worthy of the world\u2019s backing.\u00a0 But the stakes are, in fact, even higher, and they should matter to us all.<\/p>\n
Because Ukraine stands between a world that is based on agreed principles, norms and laws, which has, for the most part, delivered stability and prosperity for our populations over several decades. And the alternative: a world where would-be aggressors are rewarded rather than punished. \u00a0A world without rules and principles governing international relations and conduct.\u00a0 And a world where conflict and instability increase while prosperity and cooperation decrease.<\/p>\n
The Kremlin\u2019s propaganda machine wants to convince us all that Russia\u2019s war against Ukraine is now on the path to an inevitable victory.\u00a0 They want to give the impression that Russia\u2019s army is relentlessly advancing.\u00a0 In doing so, they hope to create a self-fulfilling prophecy where Ukraine\u2019s allies reduce their support.<\/p>\n
But this narrative is nonsense.\u00a0 Look at the statistics.\u00a0 Since November 2022, Russia has gained only 1% of Ukrainian territory.\u00a0 Its losses are both unconscionable and unsustainable \u2013 more than one million soldiers have been killed or wounded.\u00a0 Russia is also losing huge amounts of materiel that it can\u2019t replace fast enough, including over 4,000 tanks, 9,000 armoured vehicles and 2,000 artillery pieces.\u00a0 Failing to achieve its goals on the battlefield, Russia has resorted to terrorising Ukraine\u2019s civilians through aerial bombardments, including strikes this past week on a maternity hospital and gas infrastructure.<\/p>\n
In this room, Russia tries to distract us by telling us about our economic challenges.\u00a0 Yet in Russia, the economy is stagnating.\u00a0 Even those around President Putin are publicly admitting that the economy is in trouble.\u00a0 Meanwhile, the cost of the war is piling up, and ordinary Russians are footing the bill.\u00a0 The 2025 budget deficit is now set to be almost five times greater than the original target; VAT is rising to 22%; taxation thresholds are dropping from 60 to 10 million roubles, and social spending faces real-term cuts.<\/p>\n
I will conclude with a segment from a recent opinion piece in The Financial Times by Yuval Noah Harari under the title \u2018Why Ukraine is winning the war\u2019.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is impossible to tell how the war will develop, since it depends on future decisions. But in one crucial respect, the Ukrainian victory is already decisive and irreversible \u2026 War is not won by the side that conquers more land, destroys more cities, or kills more people. War is won by the side that achieves its political aims. And in Ukraine, it is already clear that Putin has failed to achieve his chief war aim \u2014 the destruction of the Ukrainian nation.\u201d<\/p>\n
We should all be grateful to those defending Ukraine.\u00a0 And they can rest assured that they do not stand alone.<\/p>\n
Thank you, Mr Chair.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Thank you, Mr Chair. Last week Ukraine marked Defenders\u2019 Day.\u00a0 This is a day when Ukrainians honour those…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":482837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7654],"tags":[2000,299,657],"class_list":{"0":"post-485369","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ukraine","8":"tag-eu","9":"tag-europe","10":"tag-ukraine"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115343646012825426","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/482837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}