---

Ukraine

The Defence Secretary is absolutely right. When Putin talks of trying to bring together ethnic Russians into the motherland, it does remind one of the 1930s, when Hitler referred to trying to bring all Germans, including Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia, back into mother Germany. Of course we are right to be very cautious. When the Defence Secretary says he has offered this invitation to his Russian counterpart, I hope that does not mean that we are announcing that we are normalising our political relations with Russia. The all-party parliamentary group on Russia has been keen to ensure, as have the House and the Inter-Parliamentary Union, that we are not normalising our political relationships until such time as Russia is able to hand over the evidence that is clearly needed in relation to Salisbury.