12 2GM Thursday April 28 2022 | the times
News
Liz Truss wants Russia to pay repara-
tions to Ukraine and has called on the
West to agree a new Marshall Plan to
fund the reconstruction effort.
The foreign secretary said that towns
and cities destroyed by Russian shelling
deserved to be rebuilt with a “landmark
international effort”. She accused Pres-
ident Putin of “appalling barbarism and
war crimes”.
In a speech at Mansion House in
London last night, Truss said western
countries must keep sending food,
medicine and other essentials to
Ukraine to keep its economy afloat. As
much as 20 per cent of the area planted
with crops in Ukraine has been left
empty or destroyed. The economy is
heavily reliant on agricultural exports
and is known as the “breadbasket of
Europe”.
Britain is discussing the potential
outcomes of the invasion as part of a
quad of nations with the US, France
and Germany. It is understood that
Truss is determined that any settle-
ment is agreed on unfavourable terms
to Russia in order to deter another
invasion.
As part of the talks, Truss is pushing
for Russia to pay reparations.
“When the guns finally fall silent in
Ukraine, it means making sure Kyiv has
the resources it needs to maintain
security, deter further attacks and re-
build,” she said. “That’s why we are
working on our joint commission with
Poland to ensure Ukraine is equipped
with Nato-standard weapons. And it’s
why we are determined to work with
the US, EU and other allies on a new
Marshall Plan for the country.
“Ukraine deserves nothing less than
a landmark international effort to
rebuild their towns and cities, re-
Quentin Letts
Smersh reveals list of
unlikely undesirables
T
owards the end of prime
minister’s questions we
heard, via Ben Everitt
(C, Milton Keynes North),
the pulse-quickening
news that Russia was imposing
personal sanctions on 287 of our
MPs. This move was testament to
the brilliance of the Russians’
intelligence-gathering network:
they know who Maggie Throup is!
Less impressively, Moscow thinksand expressed pleasure that his own
name was on the list. He had made
Vlad’s cut. It is understandable that
V Putin, one of life’s billiard balls,
might nurture wrathful feelings
towards a thrusting, youthful
statesman with such an envious
thatch.
But why sanction and ban
Throup? The vaccines minister is
hardly a tub-thumper. Her
demeanour at the Commons
dispatch box is redolent of Brian the
snail in The Magic Roundabout.
With her perpetually bunged-up
nose, Throup is about as sinister as a
banana milkshake. If Russia really
feels threatened by mild Maggie, the
Putin regime must be wobblier than
we supposed.
This being the last PMQs before
the “all-important local elections”
(as we say in rolling-news
television), both Johnson and Sir
Keir Starmer came equipped with
slogans to get out their voters.
Starmer finally cast aside the
geopolitical significance of the
prime minister’s birthday cake and
partygate and went for the more
bread-and-butter issue of theSarah Wollaston and Dominic
Grieve are still: a) MPs; b)
Conservatives. Time for its London
embassy to buy a new copy of Dod’s
Parliamentary Companion.
Boris Johnson told Everitt that
any MP on the Kremlin’s list should
consider it “a badge of honour”.
Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) was
cheesed off to find that he was not
being sanctioned. “Putin is a
barbarous villain and we must
ensure he fails,” raged an aggrieved
Bryant. The Speaker, Sir Lindsay
Hoyle, called this a blatant bid for
late inclusion on Smersh’s list of
undesirables.
Michael Fabricant (C, Lichfield)
threw aside his normal reticencePolitical Sketch
Britain’s anti-ship missiles
will arrive within weeks
George Grylls
Britain will send hundreds of anti-ship
Brimstone missiles to Ukraine to bol-
ster naval defences after the sinking of
the Russian warship Moskva.
James Heappey, the armed forces
minister, said that the supersonic mis-
siles would arrive in the “next few
weeks”.
The Brimstone can be launched from
ground or air, but it is understood that
Britain will offer the surface-based sys-
tems. The Brimstone 1 entered service
in 2005, before an updated version,
Brimstone 2, was added to the RAF’s ar-
senal in 2016.
The Brimstone 2 has a maximum
range of 37 miles, a diameter of 180mm
and is equipped with a 6.3kg warhead
that explodes in stages. It can switch
between laser-seeking guidance and
autonomous targeting and can be fired
from jets including the Tornado GR4,
the Typhoon F2, and Reaper drones.
Boris Johnson announced during his
visit to Kyiv this month that Britain
would send the missiles. Last week he
suggested that Brimstones could be
mounted on the back of vehicles to hit
targets in the Black Sea.
Ukraine fears that Russia could be
preparing to launch an amphibious
assault on Odesa, its largest port.
The Moskva was sunk on April 13 by
two Neptune missiles, a Ukrainian
weapon developed after Russia’s
annexation of Crimea in 2014.
Ukraine says as many as 250 sailors
were killed, but the Russian defence
ministry has claimed that only one per-
son died.
Russia is deploying Mangust-class
patrol boats to launch covert missions
up the Dnieper River deep behind
enemy lines, according to the Centre
for Defence Strategies, a Ukrainian
think tank.
The delivery of anti-ship missiles is
an acknowledgment of the increasing
importance of Ukraine’s waterways
and coastline to the war.News War in Ukraine
Russia must fund ‘Marshall Plan’
George Grylls, Tom Ball, Oliver Wright generate their industries, and secure
their freedom for the long term.”
The Marshall Plan was a package of
American financing to rebuild Europe
after the Second World War, totalling
more than $115 billion in today’s money.
Truss said that hostile states such as
Russia and China had brought coun-
tries into their orbit through economic
dependency as well as military power.
“For too long many have been naive
about the geopolitical power of eco-
nomics. Aggressors treat it as a tool of
foreign policy — using patronage,
investment and debt as a means to exert
control and coerce,” she said.
“They are ruthless in their approach.
Our response won’t mirror their malign
tactics, but it must more than match
them in its resolve.”
Russia announced yesterday that it
would sanction nearly 300 MPs for
fuelling “Russophobic hysteria” but
appeared to have been working from a
list from before the last election.
Among those blacklisted are cabinet
members including Jacob Rees-Mogg,
the minister for Brexit, and George
Eustice, the environment secretary. It
also includes Sir Lindsay Hoyle, the
Speaker, and the Labour MPs Diane
Abbott and Barry Gardiner. But some
of those sanctioned, including Dominic
Grieve, Rory Stewart and Nicholas
Soames, left parliament in 2019.
The list failed to include some of
Westminster’s most prominent critics
of the Kremlin, such as the Labour MP
Chris Bryant, who expressed dismay
that he was not on it.
Boris Johnson told the Commons:
“It’s, I think, no disrespect to those who
haven’t been sanctioned, when I say
that all those 287 should regard it as a
badge of honour. And what we will do is
keep up our robust and principled
support for the Ukrainian people and
their right to protect their lives, their
families, and to defend themselves.”
The Russian foreign ministry state-
ment said in translation that sanctions
were applied “on the basis of reciproci-
ty”. It added: “These persons, who are
no longer allowed to enter the Russian
Federation, took the most active part in
the establishment of anti-Russian
sanctions instruments in London, and
contribute to the groundless whipping
up of Russophobic hysteria.”
Post-Brexit Britain’s back on the
global stage, Iain Martin, page 29
Attacking Russia, Letters, page 30 Best foot forward Soldiers from an honour guard in St Petersburg warm up during a rehearsal for the Victory Day parade in
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