Georgia is still on our minds. August’s short nasty descent into violence triggered the first emergency debate of the season. John Kampfner, in the chair, began by observing wryly that the crisis had disproved the notion that ‘two countries that have Macdonalds don’t go to war.’
Oleh Rybachuk, a leading Ukrainian democrat, proposed the motion and expressed his country’s fears that Ukraine and Georgia would become a new eastern bloc and their borders ‘a new Checkpoint Charlie’. Expansionist Russia was busy violating Ukraine’s sovereignty by handing out citizenship to residents of Crimea. This alarmed Ukraine because ‘defending Russian citizens’ had been the Kremlin’s pretext for marching into Georgia. He urged Europeans not to use Ukraine’s freedom as a bargaining chip in its dealings with Russia.
Robert Skidelsky, a cross-bench peer and Russian analyst, began by trashing David Miliband’s recent suggestion that Georgia and the Ukraine should be allowed to join Nato if they wish.
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