PM: We must match our words on Ukraine with action

This week the Prime Minister will call on the international community to make a renewed and concerted effort to ensure Putin fails in Ukraine.

In the days since Russia invaded Ukraine we have seen an unprecedented wave of international condemnation from across the globe. On Wednesday evening 141 nations voted to denounce Russia’s actions in only the 11th Emergency Special Session of the UN General Assembly ever held.

The same day, 38 countries, coordinated by the UK, led the largest ever referral to the International Criminal Court to ensure Putin will be held to account for his war crimes.

At the same time, more and more countries have stepped up to provide much-needed humanitarian and military support to the people of Ukraine. Nations across the globe have imposed the largest ever package of sanctions against a major economy.

On Monday the Prime Minister will welcome Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau and Dutch Prime Minister Rutte to Downing Street for discussions on how to turn these commitments into a concerted campaign of solidarity with Ukraine. On Friday he spoke to President Macron and the leaders of Turkey and Serbia.

On Tuesday, he will host leaders of the ‘V4’ group of Central European nations – the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland and Slovakia. These are countries already experiencing first-hand the humanitarian crisis rapidly engulfing the European continent.

The Prime Minister will tell leaders that, to ensure Putin fails in his ambitions, the international community must come together under a six-point plan of action to:

1. Mobilise an international humanitarian coalition for Ukraine
2. Support Ukraine in its efforts to provide for its own self-defence
3. Maximise the economic pressure on Putin’s regime
4. Prevent the creeping normalisation of what Russia is doing in Ukraine
5. Pursue diplomatic paths to de-escalation but only on the basis of full participation by the legitimate government of Ukraine
6. Begin a rapid campaign to strengthen security and resilience across the Euro-Atlantic area

Setting out his six-point plan today, the Prime Minister will say:

Putin must fail and must be seen to fail in this act of aggression. It is not enough to express our support for the rules-based international order – we must defend it against a sustained attempt to rewrite the rules by military force.

The world is watching. It is not future historians but the people of Ukraine who will be our judge.

Last week the UK increased its humanitarian support to Ukraine and the region to £220 million announced this year, including £25 million of match funding to the DEC appeal. The UK continues to supply defensive and lethal weaponry to Ukraine and the Prime Minister has spoken to Ukrainian President Zelenskyy daily to understand the Ukrainian Armed Forces’ needs.

The UK has already implemented the largest and most severe package of economic sanctions ever imposed on a major economy. We have brought in sanctions on President Putin, Sergey Lavrov, five Russian banks and more than 300 individuals and entities at the heart of Putin’s regime, and Belarus. We are preventing the Russian state from raising debt here and isolating all Russian companies from access to UK capital markets.

The government will continue to ratchet up pressure and use sanctions to degrade the Russian economy on a scale that the Kremlin, or any major economy, has ever seen before. On Friday the government announced new provisions to streamline the current legislation so we can respond even more swiftly and effectively to the current crisis.

The Prime Minister will host both Prime Minister Rutte and Prime Minister Trudeau in Downing Street for separate bilateral meetings and a joint trilateral meeting.

Tuesday’s meeting of the V4 will take place in London and include both a plenary session of all five leaders and separate bilateral meetings.