Europe must stand up to Russia says UK

There are times when I simply despair, and Miliband's visit to Ukraine - and his silly threats to Russia as he attempts to park Nato on her back door step - is one of those times.

Miliband declared a turning point had been reached in Europe's relations with Russia, ending a nearly two decade period of relative tranquility. He said Tuesday's decision by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia represented a radical break and a moment of truth for the rest of Europe.

"[Medvedev's] unilateral attempt to redraw the map marks a moment of real significance," the foreign secretary said. "It is not just the end of the post cold war period of growing geopolitical calm in and around Europe. It is also the moment when countries are required to set out where they stand on the significant issues of nationhood and international law."

Perhaps Miliband can begin this process by defining the difference between the case for independence as expressed by Kosovo and the case as expressed by Abkhazia and South Ossetia?

For there is, to many of us, essentially none. Other than the fact that Georgia and Ukraine are offering allegiance to the west and clamouring to join Nato. Does that fact mean that the people of Abkhazia and South Ossetia have essentially lost any say over their own future? Does the fact that Georgia calls itself a democracy preclude the right of any indigenous group to declare independence?

What has been astonishing about the behaviour of the west since Georgia's invasion of South Ossetia has been our almost wilful inability to call a spade a spade, our translucent hypocrisy, our utter insistence that others must do as we say and not as we do, and our complete impotence to do anything other than to utter empty platitudes and meaningless threats.

"Over Georgia, Russia has moved from support for territorial integrity to breaking up the country in three weeks, and relied entirely on military force to do so. In between, it signed a ceasefire agreement which included international mediation as the way forward. If her word is not her bond then she will not be trusted by anyone ... Russia needs to ask itself about the relationship between short-term military victories and longer term economic prosperity." Miliband said the west must now "raise the costs to Russia of disregarding its responsibilities". In particular, Europe should hit back on the oil and gas market, with measures aimed at loosening Russia's powers as a monopoly seller.

The notion of a British member of parliament issuing threats to the Russians regarding her gas markets is almost obscenely humorous. Where does Miliband get off on this? One third of western Europe's gas is supplied by the Russians and Miliband is issuing threats? Russia have already shown how they are prepared to use gas as a political weapon when they cut supplies to the Ukraine, so Miliband is hardly playing to his strongest suit here.

And it doesn't help that the Russians are right on this issue and they know that they are right.

The people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have as much right as anyone else to say that they do not wished to be ruled by the Georgians, and we are being utterly hypocritical in attempting to demand that Georgia retains her territorial integrity over two regions who have made it abundantly clear that they do not agree with the status quo.

If we are going to get into an argument with Russia then we should do so only when we occupy the moral high ground. In this case we clearly do not, which is why the Russians are swatting us away like a very troublesome fly.

Over the last eight years we have become used to Bush demanding that reality be what he claims it to be rather than what it actually is, but to see this particular brand of stupidity embraced by a man who many claim may one day be the leader of the Labour Party is disturbing to say the least.

There is no need to tie Britain to the policies of Bush at the very moment when his power is in terminal decline. And there is no point in issuing meaningless threats to the country which supplies one third of Europe's gas when they are in the right and we are in the wrong. And to insist, at a time when we claim to be exporting democracy to Iraq, that the people of South Ossetia and Abkhazia must have no say in their own future is simply obscene.

As I say, sometimes I simply despair, and this is certainly one of those days.

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Tags: Miliband, Ukraine, South Ossetia, Abkhazia, Kosovo, Russia, United Kingdom