A Labour strategy for Russia’s war on Ukraine

Top lines

The UK government’s provision of economic, humanitarian and defensive military assistance to Ukraine has provided Britons with a rare moment of national pride and unity.

The Labour party’s vociferous support of Ukrainian security and of the HMG position made this unity possible. As Keir Starmer asserted to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during his visit to Kyiv: Ukraine will always have the Labour Party’s ‘unwavering support’.

Given Labour’s history of championing democracy, respecting self-determination, and investing in defence, this should not be a surprise. Labour has been fighting for a better, fairer Britain for over 100 years.

There are untold domestic challenges facing the party should it win power in 2024, but any such future battle for Britain will also necessitate fighting, metaphorically, for Ukraine, whose victory is clearly in the UK’s national interests.

As such, Labour’s mission will be to maintain and expand existing UK-Ukraine cooperation and relations, while rendering them more sustainable.

This report offers a strategy and policy programme to assist those endeavours. It seeks to answer the following three questions, differentiated by temporal and geographic foci:

• How to facilitate Ukraine’s self-defence?

• How to deter Russia from ongoing and future aggression against Ukraine?

• How to achieve a just peace for Ukraine?