Ukraine Solidarity Campaign meets Defence Committee Chair Tan Dhesi MP

CALLS FOR URGENT SURGE IN UK AID TO UKRAINE

Last week, the team from Ukraine Solidarity Campaign had a successful meeting with Labour’s Tan Dhesi MP, the chair of Parliament’s Defence Committee, in order to discuss how the government can keep strong with its commitment to stand in solidarity with Ukraine’s fight for freedom and democracy.
The delegation comprised Christopher Ford Secretary of USC, Yuliya Yurchenko representative of the Confederation of Free Trade Unions of Ukraine and Olena Ivashchenko leader of the UK based Campaign for Ukraine.
We shared with Mr Dhesi a list of key actions Labour can take in order to support Ukraine’s struggle against Russian aggression, from a military, human rights, and workers’ rights perspective.
Central to our discussion was our ongoing demand that the Ministry of Defence (MoD) suspends its practice of selling off old military equipment via its Defence Equipment Sales Authority, and instead donates all surplus supplies to the Ukrainian military. Doing so could release a total of 30 AS90 155mm self-propelled guns; 63 Challenger 2 main battle tanks; any remaining Scimitar tanks; warrior infantry fighting vehicles, Typhoons and Chinooks.

This is military equipment that would never be used by our own armed forces – instead it represents soon-to-be-retired hardware that would be sold by the MoD to the highest bidder. With Ukraine in urgent need of military aid, we argued that this equipment should be sent to our allies on the Eastern front, where they can be used to fight against Russia.
We also discussed the need to improve satellite communications for Ukraine, which helps to ensure effective communication between units and the success of special operations on the battlefield.

Our team lobbied Mr Dhesi to provide Ukraine with unlimited subscriptions to a range of satellite technologies, including 200 manpack and 100 vehicular packs of satcom solution for tactical communications; 2000 units of Satcom UAV terminals; 300 units of Satcom maritime terminals; and 2000 units of Satcom Ultra small pack for emergency sms communications.
Since the start of the full-scale invasion, the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign has conducted numerous trips to the country in order to deliver humanitarian and military aid to miners, schools, soldiers and workers. We brought our insights from these trips to Mr Dhesi, to explain how the MoD could use its resources to assist in the provision of humanitarian aid to Ukrainian troops and civilians. This could include, we argued, offering assistance with the transportation of civil society collected aid, such as vehicles, to the Armed Forces of Ukraine, or delivering decommissioned NHS vehicles to support the transfer of medical supplies.
Russia’s war in Ukraine has changed the nature of international security, with even MI5 heads discussing how threats to the UK and global stability are now posed by hostile states, rather than terrorism. The recent US election and Donald Trump’s victory, alongside electoral interference leading to growing support for pro-Russian leaders in Europe, means the future of international cooperation with Ukraine, and the strength of NATO, is uncertain.
However, this provides an opportunity for the UK to take a leading role in showing the world that Europe and its allies continue to stand firm with Ukraine.
We discussed with Mr Dhesi how to make sure the UK is leading from the front on freezing Russian assets and repossessing assets from sanctioned individuals, and in our continuing commitment to train Ukrainian forces. We believe the UK can take a lead across NATO, G7, G20, and OSCE member states to use security exceptions or similar and prioritise the production and delivery of military goods to Ukraine – and that this production and delivery should take priority over any other contractual obligations member states might have to be paid with frozen Russian assets, or the interest on those assets.
There is so much the UK can continue to do to support Ukraine’s fight against Russian aggression. The full-scale invasion poses not just a threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty and safety, but to wider European and UK security. We urged Mr Dhesi to do whatever it takes for Ukraine to win.
This finished with us sharing a list of equipment sent by our comrades in the 43 Artillery Brigade. The list, which ranges from vehicles to comms equipment to arms, demonstrates the challenges Ukrainian troops face every day – as well as their remarkable bravery, resilience and determination to resist.