(New Forest East)
(Con):...Whereas Russia previously infiltrated by ideology, its
leaders now bribe their targets with high-spending oligarchs and
the temptations that they place in the way of western
politicians. Gerhard Schröder, a former Chancellor of Germany, is
the prime example—a man who has been chairman of Rosneft since
2017 and has recently, I believe, been a director of
Gazprom as well. He has been at the heart of
the Nord Stream
2 pipeline project, which my hon. Friend the Member
for Shrewsbury and Atcham () did so much to warn this
House against when people were somewhat complacent about it...
(Rhondda) (Lab):...I do not
understand why the former MP Rinat Khayrov, who is very close to
the Defence Ministry, is not on the list. I do not understand why
his close associate Rustem Magdeev is not, and neither is
Khayrov’s daughter, Elsina Khayrova, who is unemployed but
manages to have a £22 million mansion in Surrey, a £10 million
art fund and £25 million spent on other properties around the UK.
I do not understand why her husband, or perhaps soon to be
ex-husband, Dmitry Tsvetkov is not on the list, and neither are
so many others involved in Gazprom contracts. I
do not understand why Abramovich’s properties that are owned
through his “subsidiaries”, or rather by members of his
family—Irina, Anna and Sofia—in Chester Square, Ebury Mews, Eaton
Square, Cadogan Place, Hornbury Crescent, Tor Gardens, Fyning
Hill and Goldring farm are not on the list. I do not understand
why those have not yet been frozen as assets...
(Stone) (Con):...Russia’s
debt, 40% of which was owed to Germany alone, was accompanied by
a debt rescheduling agreement signed in Berlin in July 2000. The
agreement was complemented by contracts for export credit
guarantees provided by the German state-owned company Hermes. I
emphasised my concern that Germany was then agreeing in principle
to convert Russian debt into equity in Russian companies—in which
Gerhard Schröder, the ex-Chancellor of Germany, became a major
player. I believe that even now he is still the chairman of
Rosneft, is on Gazprom’s board of directors and
is chairman of the Nord Stream shareholders committee. Is that
still so? Has he been sanctioned?
I warned then—in 2001—against German firms increasing their stake
in Gazprom. At that time, natural gas exports
from Russia to Germany amounted to 35% of Germany’s annual
consumption. I argued that Vladimir Putin, scarcely heard of at
the time, was a Russian nationalist who bitterly resented being
dependent on America and who had a choice between building an
alliance with China or with Europe. I argued that Russia’s
dependence on Germany had within it the seeds of self-destruction
and represented severe dangers to our future geopolitical
stability.
By the arrangements I have described, Russia was enabled to
weaponise its energy against the west in return for short-sighted
hubris and self-interested greed. We live today with the
consequences of those mistakes; therefore arises the tragedy of
Ukraine. Nord Stream
2 —let alone Nord Stream 1—bypasses Ukraine, so it
remains one of the greatest strategic mistakes of our time,
conceived all of 20 years ago or more. It created Europe’s
dependency on Russian gas and oil supplies, which must be totally
ended now.
When we reflect on the fundamental shift represented by Olaf
Scholz’s reversal of Germany’s defence policy and its increase in
defence spending, let us remember that two swallows do not make a
summer, and that it was a mere three weeks ago that I wrote an
article in which I pointed out that Germany was providing only a
few thousand helmets to Russia’s eastern European neighbours and
merely pausing Nord Stream
2 It is now not a question of merely learning
lessons with the benefit of hindsight: the real point is whether
we will ever learn the real lessons of history and of human
nature that need to be learned for the future. As I speak,
Germany still depends on Russian oil and gas and Nord Stream
2 has only been paused, not yet completely
abandoned...
(Shrewsbury and Atcham)
(Con):...I have got to know the Ukrainian ambassador, my friend
Vadym Prystaiko, over the past few years in my campaign against
the Nord Stream
2 pipeline, which many of us see as a tremendous
threat to Ukraine and to our NATO partners in central and eastern
Europe. I bowed my head to him and apologised that so many of us
did not fully come to terms with or recognise the step-by-step
salami-slicing tactics of the Russian Government. We should have
realised that South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Donetsk, Luhansk and
Crimea were major warning signs that this lunatic was starting to
get out of control and would cause a major conflagration on our
continent. When I was on the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs,
we visited Donetsk and Luhansk, but even then, when we saw the
tremendous destruction, I was not fully cognisant of the
potential dangers ahead, so I have apologised to the Ukrainian
ambassador...
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