A former foreign office minister has said the UK risks falling into “dystopian economic collapse” should it move to sanction Russian gas.
It comes as Britain may move this week to ratchet up sanctions on Russia’s oil and gas industries – as reported by The Independent last week – as part of efforts to isolate Putin’s regime globally.
Sir Alan Duncan told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme: “There is this auction of indignation, which all of us totally understand, against anything to do with Russia.
“So they ban this, ban that and ban everything, but in the end, we’re going to end up banning our own supplies.
“Now, we of course, want to disadvantage Russia as an essential tool of war. But we don’t want to disadvantage ourselves so that we fall into some kind of dystopian economic collapse. We are on the edge of that.
“Now, for instance, there are subsidiary companies of Gazprom, which are not sanctioned, which are not incorporated in Russia, which are incorporated in one case in the UK, which are essential to the smooth flowing of gas.”
Watch: Watch live as Boris Johnson speaks about Ukraine-Russia war with Canada and Netherlands leaders
We are live with Boris Johnson speaks about Ukraine-Russia war with Canada and Netherlands leaders.
Putin did not take Nato’s threats of deterrence ‘seriously enough’, says Truss
Foreign secretary Liz Truss has said Russia’s invasion of Ukraine shows that Nato needs to spend more on defence and improve the way the alliance works.
She told MPs: “There’s no doubt that the West didn’t act early enough or decisively enough.
“The reality is President Putin did not take the threats of deterrence seriously enough.”
She told the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee: “What we have to do now is we have to strengthen Nato, we particularly have to strengthen the eastern flank.
Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the results of the investigation of Russian MetroJet Airbus A321 crash in Sinai, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 17 November 2015
” height=”726″ width=”982″ layout=”responsive” class=”i-amphtml-layout-responsive i-amphtml-layout-size-defined” i-amphtml-layout=”responsive”> Russian President Vladimir Putin chairs a meeting on the results of the investigation of Russian MetroJet Airbus A321 crash in Sinai, at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, 17 November 2015
“We have already deployed more troops into Estonia but there is more to do.
“We have to be serious about defence spending, right across Nato.”
West ‘enabled the development of Russian high-tech warfare’, says Truss
Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had “shattered the security architecture of Europe”, foreign secretary Liz Truss said.
Asked why efforts to deter Mr Putin had failed, she told the commons foreign affairs committee: “I think post-Cold War the West took its eye off the ball.
“Defence budgets were cut, there was too much entering into trade and economic relationships without understanding the underlying strategic dependency that would lead to.
“That’s particularly true of hydrocarbons, which are of course a major part of the Russian economy, but it’s also true of technology exports.”
The West “enabled the development of Russian high-tech warfare” by providing the funding through oil and gas sales, she said.
“Everything from financial services to broader parts of the service economy were integrated with Russia despite the fact that we saw what happened in 2008 (in Georgia), we saw what happened in 2014 (in Crimea).”
Vladimir Putin sees ‘no way out’ but to ‘continue with destruction’, Boris Johnson says
Boris Johnson has warned that he believes Vladimir Putin plans to “double down” on his bloody invasion of Ukraine, envisaging “no way out” other than to continue with the “pulverising of innocent populations”.
Despite the Russian president’s insistence that his “special military operation” was “going to plan” as it entered its ninth day, his forces’ progress appears to be behind schedule and beset by logistical problems.
Mr Putin repeated in a televised address on Thursday he wanted to ensure the “demilitarisation of Ukraine so that we can’t be threatened by an anti-Russia right on our borders that the West has been creating for years”.
My colleague Andy Gregory has more:
Watch live as Liz Truss talks about Russian attacks in Ukraine
British foreign secretary Liz Truss is set to speak to MPs about the recent developments in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
The ceasefire agreement between Russia and Ukraine failed over the weekend due to escalating violence and shelling, sending Ukrainians back inside their homes.
Starmer says his focus is on Ukraine not Johnson’s leadership
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has said he still thinks Boris Johnson is “not fit to be prime minister”, but his current focus is on the situation in Ukraine
Speaking to reporters in London on Monday, Sir Keir said: “My position on the Prime Minister and what I think of him hasn’t changed, I don’t think he’s fit to be Prime Minister.
“But at a time when we’re seeing these desperate scenes from Ukraine, my arguments today, my focus today, is on Ukraine.”
He added: “I do not think he’s fit for office. But it’s very important as Leader of the Opposition, as leader of the Labour Party, that I make clear that my total focus at the moment, as you would expect, is on supporting Ukraine.”
On the BBC’s Sunday Morning programme, Sir Keir said Russian President Vladimir Putin wanted to divide the West, and therefore it was very important to demonstrate unity at Westminster.
PM denies intervening to secure peerage for Evgeny Lebedev
It comes after the Prime Minister was urged to tell a powerful parliamentary committee everything he knows about the Russian-born media mogul’s elevation to the House of Lords.
Labour’s shadow home secretary Yvette Cooper wrote to Mr Johnson following a report in The Sunday Times which alleged that security services withdrew an assessment that granting a peerage to the Moscow-born son of an ex-KGB agent posed a national security risk, after the Prime Minister personally intervened.
Amy Gibbons reports:
No UK visa centre in Calais, says No 10
Downing Street has clarified that there is no current UK visa centre in Calais, following a row with France over Ukrainian refugees arriving at the French port town, writes Adam Forrest.
France claimed that 150 refugees who had travelled to Calais in the hope of coming to the UK were told they had to apply at visa centres in Paris or Brussels.
But home secretary Priti Patel claimed the French government was “wrong” and said “the British government is not turning anybody around or turning anybody back at all.”
Asked if there was a visa centre at Calais, Mr Johnson’s spokesman said: “I don’t believe there’s one there now, but we’ll keep it under review.”
Asked if refugees in Calais needed to travel to Paris or Brussels to make their application, he said: “I believe that’s correct, but there’s a helpline in place … and we’re keeping the situation on the ground in Calais under review.”
Starmer calls Ukraine refugee response in UK a ‘complete mess’
Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer slammed the Home Office’s response to the Ukraine refugee crisis as a “complete mess”.
Speaking at King’s College London, he said: “It’s very important that we provide a route to sanctuary for those that are fleeing for their lives.
“The Home Office is in a complete mess about this, they keep changing the rules, the stories of what is actually happening on the ground contradict what the Home Office say.
“They have got to sort this out … there should be a simple route to sanctuary for those that are fleeing for their lives.”
Boris Johnson says Putin ‘doubling down’ on aggression in Ukraine
Vladimir Putin’s “unrestrained attacks” in Ukraine are resulting in “huge waves” of refugees being forced out of their homes, prime minister Boris Johnson said today.
Speaking at RAF Northolt in west London, Mr Johnson said: “Clearly, what’s happening now is that Putin is doubling down on his aggression and he is deciding to attack in a pretty indiscriminate way.
“That’s producing huge waves of people, we’re going to have to respond to that and we will.”
He added: “As the situation in Ukraine deteriorates, people are going to want to see this country open our arms to people fleeing persecution, fleeing a war zone.
“I think people who have spare rooms, who want to receive people coming from Ukraine, will want us to have a system that enables them to do that. And that is already happening.”
