This report attempts to provide a maximally sleek strategic overview to inform Labour policy and thinking on the UK-Ukraine (UK-UA) relationship and on Russia’s war against Ukraine. In so doing, it draws on interviews with a wide range of senior Ukrainian, British, American, EU, and Russian officials and foreign policy elites as well as close to a decade of academic research on Russian foreign policy, propaganda, and public attitudes towards Ukraine and the West.

The current crisis in Ukraine is not about Ukraine, but about Russia’s longstanding desire and attempt to redraw the entire European security architecture.

When dealing with the Kremlin, the Conservative Government is tough in rhetoric and weak in action – the worst possible combination.

There is substantial evidence that the Lukashenko government has sought to capitalise on current regional instability by creating false promises of a simple journey into the EU, using Belarus as a point of access.

The UK is closer than it has been in years to a cross-party consensus on Russia. Labour and the Conservatives now share a justified perception of Russia as a clear threat to the UK as well as its allies and partners in Europe. Their mutual recognition of Russia’s malign behaviour, however, obscures a mutual failure to elaborate a detailed vision of what Britain’s relations with Russia should look like.