{"id":341,"date":"2014-10-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test.johnwhittingdale.co.uk\/?p=341"},"modified":"2021-08-23T08:42:44","modified_gmt":"2021-08-23T08:42:44","slug":"ukraine-question-to-the-minister-for-the-armed-forces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/?p=341","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine &#8211; Question to the Minister for the Armed Forces"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong><strong>Mr John Whittingdale<\/strong> (Maldon) (Con):<\/strong> What assistance his  Department (the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) is giving to Ukraine.<\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark  Francois):<\/strong><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\"> The UK remains firmly committed to Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty,  independence and territorial integrity. We welcome the ceasefire agreement  reached between Ukraine and Russia in Minsk on 5 September and the subsequent  agreement on 19 September setting out the modalities for its implementation. The  ceasefire agreement is broadly holding, although there have been a number of  breaches on both sides. The MOD will continue to build on its long-standing  relationship with the Ukrainian MOD. We have increased our defence engagement,  providing additional support on crisis management, anti-corruption measures,  defence reform and strategic communications.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">Mr Whittingdale:<\/strong><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\"> As my right hon. Friend is aware,  Ukrainian forces recently engaged not just with Russian-backed separatists, but  with regular Russian army troops and their armour, which invaded their country  and inflicted upon them heavy losses. Will he see what more can be done to  rebuild Ukraine\u2019s defence capability?<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\">Mr Francois:<\/strong><span style=\"line-height: 1.3em;\"> We are clear that there cannot be a  simply military solution to this conflict. We have provided military support and  additional non-lethal support in line with Ukrainian priorities. Specifically,  the Government have already provided non-lethal support to the Ukrainian  security forces, including personal protective equipment, and last week the  Government announced their intention to deliver more than \u00a3800,000-worth of  further kit, including body armour, medical kits and winter supplies. Also at  the NATO summit the UK committed to leading a new C4\u2014command, control,  communications and computers\u2014trust fund. We have pledged over \u00a3500,000 to the C4  logistics and standardisation trust fund as well. With contributions from other  nations, those trust funds and wider NATO activity will play a significant role  in supporting the Ukrainian armed forces.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mr John Whittingdale (Maldon) (Con): What assistance his Department (the Foreign and Commonwealth Office) is giving to Ukraine. The Minister for the Armed Forces (Mr Mark Francois): The UK remains firmly committed to Ukraine\u2019s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity. We welcome the ceasefire agreement reached between Ukraine and Russia in Minsk on 5 September and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1533,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-speeches"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2038,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/2038"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1533"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.johnwhittingdale.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}