I am grateful to be called to speak in this debate, which is well timed following the appalling and outrageous events in Salisbury barely three weeks ago. The question that must now be asked is whether Russia poses a threat to the national security of the United Kingdom and its allies. I believe that it does and that we are now entering a new period of Anglo-Russian relations. If not quite a cold war like we had in the last century, it is at least what I would call a “cool war” characterised by the aggressive actions of a Putin-led Government in Moscow and our strained relations with that Government as a result.
Assessing a threat classically involves an examination of both capabilities and intentions, so perhaps we should begin by taking a look at the development of Russian military capabilities in recent years. President Putin’s rather bellicose state of the union address, just prior to his re-election, contained references to new, ultra-long-range nuclear cruise missiles. Some of them can be launched by submarine or even underwater drones, he claimed, and are therefore capable of evading America’s limited ballistic missile defences. Analysts currently differ about the existence of such weapons. However, we know that the Russians have already developed a long-range, nuclear-capable cruise missile, the Kh-101, which is already being fitted to the strategic bomber aircraft of Russian long range aviation. In addition, the Russian strategic rocket forces deploy around 1,200 warheads in silo-based and road-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Russians have an active modernisation programme under way for their strategic nuclear forces, which aims to replace all the old Soviet-era ICBMs by 2020, with many of the new missiles having multiple independently targeted re-entry vehicles or MIRV warheads.
Russia’s strategic triad is completed by its ballistic missile submarines or SSBNs, including three new vessels of the Dolgorukiy class, armed with the new SS-N-32 ballistic missile. All the Russian submarine-launched ballistic missiles can reach their targets from their home ports, and those in the northern fleet are more than capable of reaching the United Kingdom. In recent years, Russia has also made considerable strides in quietening its submarines, especially the new class of Severodvinsk nuclear attack submarines, which are now entering service. In addition, many of Russia’s submarines are now armed with the Kalibr land attack cruise missile, which is believed to have already been used in the conflict in Syria,
where Russia has targeted civilian hospitals without mercy. Russian submarines have increased the tempo of their operations in recent years and have been frequent visitors to our home waters, and Russian submersibles have also apparently spent considerable time reconnoitring the transatlantic cables that carry so much of our financial services business between Europe and the United States. Last year, a Russian surface task group, including their Admiral Kuznetsov aircraft carrier and Peter the Great battlecruiser, sailed through the English channel en route to Syria.
Russia is also upgrading its ground forces. According to the previous vice-chief of the defence staff, General Sir Richard Barrons, during the invasion of Ukraine in 2014, two Ukrainian mechanised infantry battalions were located by a Russian surveillance drone and were effectively destroyed in under 15 minutes using rocket artillery. Russian long range aviation maintains over a hundred nuclear-capable strategic bombers including the Bear, Blackjack and Backfire aircraft, and a new fifth-generation fighter, the Su-57, is due to enter service in around 2020. Russian bomber aircraft now regularly encroach into our airspace and are regularly intercepted by our quick reaction alert Typhoons.
All of that adds up to a considerable increase in capability in both nuclear and conventional forces as part of a 10-year strategic armament programme, running from 2011 through to 2020. According to the United States Defence Intelligence Agency, Russia spent around 3% of its GDP on defence for much of that period, increasing to 4.5% of GDP last year. Russia’s ability to inflict violence on us and our allies has therefore increased considerably in recent years.
Discerning Russian intentions is in many ways more difficult, but we can certainly look at the actions of Russia over the past few years to try to get some hints of what might lie in Russian minds in future. It is clear that Russia has been prepared to use military power, allied with information warfare, to achieve its political objectives on the European landmass. There was the invasion of Georgia in 2008—I travelled to Georgia with David Cameron to support the Georgians—the annexation of Crimea in 2014, the effective invasion of eastern Ukraine, and the annexation of some of the eastern provinces. Pressure has also been put on the Baltic states, including a particularly virulent cyber-attack on Estonia in 2007.
In response to all that, we certainly need to maintain and upgrade our nuclear deterrent, as approved by an overwhelming vote in this House several years ago. We also need to upgrade our conventional defences, as we did in the 1980s when faced with the threat of the Soviet Union. Bluntly, that means spending the money to do so. It is not often that I agree with the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant), but he and I are right on this one.
The attack on Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia seems primarily to have been intended as a signal to other potential Russian defectors to think again. Nevertheless, it represented a chemical weapons attack on British soil, which seriously injured a police officer, and led to some 30 other UK citizens requiring at least some medical attention. People who do that are not our friends.
As long as Putin remains in government, it seems that we must accept the reality of entering into a “cool war” with Russia for the foreseeable future. However, working
with our NATO allies, we successfully deterred the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and the wall came down. We may now have to do it again.
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