Deputy Prime Minister Dominic Raab joined Sophie Raworth this morning to address the continuing developments in Ukraine. It is widely believed that the Russian army has failed to meet most of its key objectives since the invasion began on the 24 February. Within the first few days, Russian president Vladimir Putin had already given the command to place Russia’s vast nuclear deterrence forces on ‘high alert’. Raab suggested that Putin was just sabre-rattling:
Raab: Putin should be ‘held to account’ at the Hague
Boris Johnson has already described Putin’s actions in Ukraine as a war crime, comparing his behaviour to ‘the last years of Slobodan Milosevic’, the Serbian leader who became known to history as the ‘Butcher of the Balkans’. Trevor Phillips asked Raab, who has worked to prosecute war criminals before entering the House of Commons, for more detail about what could be done to bring Putin to justice:
Sir Keir Starmer: Boris should go ‘further and faster’ on sanctions
Raworth also interviewed Labour leader Keir Starmer. In general, Starmer sought to create a sense of unity between the government and the opposition. However, though he pledged Labour’s support for the Economic Crime bill in the Commons tomorrow, he argued that the sanctions on Russia needed to be beefed up:
Starmer: There is still ‘an issue of trust’ in the PM
Raworth challenged Starmer over the united front that he was so keen to display, asking him whether this meant that he would be dropping his insistence that the Prime Minister resigned after the Partygate fiasco:
Tony Radakin: Russia will ‘ratchet up the violence’
The head of the Armed Forces, Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, told Raworth that while it was by no means a given that Ukraine would fall to Russia, he predicted would be there would be ‘ridiculous violence’ yet to come:
Ruth Smeeth: There is no free media left in Russia
Finally, the former Labour MP Ruth Smeeth, who is now the CEO of the Index on Censorship, told Phillips more about the crackdown on Russian media following the passing of a new law threatening up to 15 years in jail for people spreading ‘fake news’ about the president’s war:
Comments