Yahoo News Western countries could ‘all do more’ to support Ukraine, says Ben Wallace
Western countries could “all do more” to support Ukraine, Sir Ben Wallace has said.
The former defence secretary urged Nato nations to continue funding Ukraine after he was asked what more the West could do to help Kyiv.
“We could all do more,” Sir Ben said. “We could always do more.”
At an event at Chatham House, he added that “more” could have been done in terms of “training in Ukraine” and said the defence industry should have sped up its production of weapons.
“Could we have ramped up our production?” he asked. “We all could have done. The penny should have dropped in Europe that there is a war on in Europe and we need to go to a sort of war footing.”
However, Sir Ben cautioned against focusing on single weapons systems – such as Storm Shadow missiles – as a “magic” arms that could turn the tide of the war in Ukraine’s favour.
Kyiv fired the British-gifted long-range weapon into Russia for the first time in November.
Sir Ben said: “We get too hooked up on totemic individual weapons systems.”
He continued to say that the “totemic debate” around giving Ukraine permission to fire Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia “did more harm than good”.
“Because it exposed Western splits,” he warned. “It showed a weakness on the international, unified front and it also suggested to the public there was a magic weapon that it could all be over with.”
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Over the summer – before the US granted Ukraine permission to strike Russia with arms – the Sir Keir Starmer failed to deny that objections from Washington were blocking it.
It followed reports from The Telegraph that the UK backed the use of Storm Shadow missiles by Ukraine in Russia but would not publicly call for action amid concern it would provoke a row with the US.
Speaking at the event on Tuesday, Sir Ben also stressed the need to “never stop” helping Ukraine.
“Never stop helping Ukraine militarily with equipment and training people – whatever you need to do to defeat Putin,” he said.
“That’s the best way to spend your defence money right now, is spending in Ukraine.
“We want to send a message to Putin about about the depth of resilience. We can help.
“All those 30 Nato countries, we could train a million – we did 50,000 alone in Britain. It’s the easiest give we can give,” Sir Ben added.
