UK military advisor, Nicholas Aucott, says Russia's war of aggression has been a strategic miscalculation that is exacting a heavy toll on Russia's military and economy.
Thank you, Mr Chair. Yesterday marked 1000 days since Russia launched its illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It did this in spite of concerted efforts in this Forum to avert such a disastrous course of action. Against all commitments made in the Vienna Document and the Helsinki Final Act, foundational documents to which we are all signatories, Russia chose to wilfully violate its obligations.
Although Russia expected to achieve victory within a matter of days, the people of Ukraine have remained resilient and brave in the defence of their homeland. They have presented a serious challenge to the Russian military exacting a significant price, with credible reports suggesting Russia has incurred upwards of 700,000 casualties, killed or wounded.
Last weekend, Russia attempted to 'double-down' on its aggressive actions, conducting one of the largest missile-strikes against Ukraine in the last year. This was a complex coordinated attack targeting energy infrastructure across Ukraine in the early hours of 17 November. The strikes reportedly consisted of 120 missiles launched from air, land and maritime platforms and 90 One Way Attack UAVs against Ukraine's largest thermal power plants and transformer substations.
As has repeatedly been the case in this war, it is the Ukrainian civilian population who suffer as a consequence of these illegal actions. The large-scale strikes killed at least 10 civilians and many more were injured. Ukraine's energy grid also suffered severe damage with several regions experiencing power outages. This is particularly concerning, as Ukraine enters the winter period, with temperatures potentially dropping as low as -20C.
More broadly, Ukraine has now incurred more than 30,000 civilian casualties (10,000 killed and 20,000 injured); the largest displacement crisis since WWII (13 million people, nearly a third Ukraine's pre-war population); the destruction of civilian infrastructure; and appalling human rights abuses including the forced deportation of over 19,500 Ukrainian children. Moreover, the war will have a long-lasting psychological impact on the Ukrainian people.
This is the cost of Putin's war of choice on the people of Ukraine. This is why we meet here in this Forum, to hold the Russian state to account for its illegal actions. For this is a generational struggle, not just affecting Ukraine, but presenting a profound challenge to the UN Charter and the international order on which our prosperity and security depends.
The cost to Russia, however, is indicative of a serious strategic miscalculation. President Putin continues to callously throw Russian lives at the front, despite suffering an average of 1,350 casualties a day in October - a record high. This is exacting a toll on the Russian military and has led to increasingly desperate measures, evidenced in the deployment of approximately 10,000 DPRK troops to Russia - a significant and dangerous development. Russian military spending has eclipsed social spending for the first time in Russia's post-soviet history, and in 2024 Russia's GDP per capita fell behind that of every EU country.
Putin can choose to end his war by withdrawing all his forces from Ukraine's internationally recognised sovereign territory. For as long as Putin continues his illegal war, the UK, along with key international partners will support Ukraine unwaveringly, to thwart Russia's aggression. This is the necessary requirement to ensure that all states, represented here, can peacefully exist in an international order to which we have all subscribed. Thank you.
