Emergency Question: The Russian Invasion of Ukraine

Part of the debate – in the Senedd at 1:52 pm on 1 March 2022.

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Photo of Alun Davies Alun Davies Labour 1:52, 1 March 2022

I'm grateful, Presiding Officer; I'm grateful to you for allowing this question this afternoon. I think many of us will have seen the footage coming out of Ukraine last night of doctors and paramedics trying to save the life of a six-year-old girl—a girl who was simply going about her daily life and was murdered by the Russian military. You don't have indiscriminate attacks without casualties. You don't have indiscriminate targeting of civilian areas and people's homes without killing people. And one of the most profound things I think we've all seen has been the impact of war on people in Ukraine, people who are entirely innocent, who have no argument with the people of Russia and have no argument with people elsewhere. People, like ourselves, who are going about our own daily lives. I don't think there's anyone in this Chamber or elsewhere who didn't feel the pain of watching the footage of that girl last night, and didn't put themselves in the minds and the hearts of her family and her parents as they watched her life slip away. We cannot stand by with this moral outrage taking place and take no action. I'm grateful to the First Minister for his words. I'm grateful to the Welsh Government for the power of their statement that they've made, and the power of the argument that they've made to protect the people of Ukraine, as we protected the people, and sought to protect the people, of Afghanistan and Syria before.

First Minister, can you give us an undertaking now that you will continue to work with the other administrations in the United Kingdom to ensure that we have the ability to respond to this humanitarian crisis, that we are able to reach out and put our arms around the people of Ukraine who so need that help today, that we will lead and we will continue to make the power of the moral argument that Putin is committing war crimes? And I welcome Lithuania's move this morning in the International Criminal Court to open an investigation into Vladmir Putin, and I hope that the Welsh Government and the UK Government will support that. And I hope that we'll put aside all our political differences here and elsewhere and put the interests of the people of Ukraine first and ensure that we work together across the whole of this country and the whole of this Chamber to ensure that this country, that Wales, on its national day, extends the hand of friendship and support and love to Ukraine and the people who are suffering so terribly there.