Please see below the PM words from Cabinet this morning marking
the fourth anniversary of the Ukraine war.
"Good morning, colleagues. And before we get into our usual
business today, I just wanted to say a few words to mark the four
years of the conflict in Ukraine. That's four years of Putin
aggression. Four long years and four long years of suffering in
Ukraine. And, you will have your own images and memories of that
suffering.
I've got three etched in my mind. The first is in the early days
when I went to Kyiv after conflict broke out, I went to Bucha,
which is just outside Kyiv, and saw for myself the roads and the
ditches in which Ukrainian civilians were handcuffed with their
hands behind their back, blindfolded and shot in the head and the
bodies left in the road.
I'd seen the images on film, but I went to see for myself the
actual place and talked to the communities there. It was their
families. It was their brothers and sisters. It was their
communities. And they were left, as they described to me, to pick
up the bodies, put them in shopping trolleys and take them to the
local church where they put them in a mass grave.
The second etched in my memory was last year when I went to one
of the busiest hospitals in Kyiv and saw for myself the
incredibly awful burns on some of those who had returned from the
frontline, the like of which I'd never seen in my life before.
And at the same time, I went to a primary school to meet children
who were five, six, seven years old, and had lost both their
parents to the conflict.
There will be many examples, including the recent attacks on the
energy system, when was -18 degrees and left people freezing in
their homes. But that is the suffering inflicted by the
aggression of Putin. My message to you, the Cabinet, and to the
country today, as we mark this four years, is that we stand with
Ukraine for as long as it takes.
I wanted also to pay tribute to the incredible resilience of the
Ukrainians. And it is incredible resilience. When this conflict
broke out four years ago, it was assumed it would be a matter of
weeks before Putin took the whole of Ukraine. That's what
everybody believed to be the case. Four years later, the
Ukrainians are holding out against that aggression. Holding out
on the front line where the circumstances are extremely
challenging, but also holding out in the civilian life, where
every day Ukrainians get up and go to work as a sign of
resilience and defiance of the aggression.
And, we must defeat the falsehood that Russia is winning. Because
if you take the last year alone, Russia took 0.8%, of land in
Ukraine at a terrible cost to themselves of half a million
losses. So we pay tribute to the resilience of Ukrainians. We all
want a just and lasting peace. And that is what we're all working
so hard for.
It must be just. And it must be lasting. That's why we set up a
coalition of the willing a year ago, to do the work that was
necessary on security guarantees. And I'm chairing a meeting of
the Coalition of the Willing, immediately after this Cabinet to
try and take that work further forward. But let's be clear in
terms of getting to that just and lasting peace, it is Putin who
is standing in the way.
Zelenskyy has shown willing. He's taken the lead. It is Putin who
is standing in the way. And that's why we must always double down
on our support for Ukraine. That means capability. It means
resource. It means more sanctions. And today, I'm pleased that
we're announcing the biggest package since 2022. In terms of
sanctions package. That's 300 Russian energy companies that are
being targeted.
And we're doing a lot more work on the shadow fleet, which is
essential in terms of weakening the ability of Russia to continue
with this aggression.
And then finally this, because this is not a remote conflict a
long way away from the United Kingdom. It's about us on so many
levels. It's about our values of freedom, democracy, and the
right of a country to decide for itself what it does, which is
democracy and sovereignty.
It has already impacted us over and above the work we've done on
capability, resource sanctions, etc., because it has hit every
family with the cost of living. Energy prices doubled at the
beginning of this conflict. They're still 40% higher than they
were before the conflict. And so every family is feeling this,
and how and when this conflict ends is going to affect everybody
in the United Kingdom, for a very long time, which is why it's so
important that we make sure that there's a just and lasting
peace.
And Ukraine is very much the frontline of our freedom, but we
need to bear that in mind as we lost four years since the
outbreak of this conflict. Thank you, colleagues."
