Ex foreign secretary urges UK to supply Ukraine with heavy weapons

Former foreign secretary Lord Hague has said the UK ought to be heavier weapons to Ukraine.

The besieged nation’s government has repeatedly requested that western governments send heavier weaponry such as tanks as continues to resist the Russian invasion.

Nato members remain divided over the question, and fear such a decision could violate its commitment to  providing solely “defensive” weaponry.

Lord Hague told Times Radio earlier today: “We ought to be doing that, sending them some heavier weapons because you are quite right that often you have to attack in order to defend yourself.”

He argued that the UK and allies had already begun providing a wider array of weapons beyond the merely defensive.

“We just heard the description of the battle that is coming in the east, in the Donbas and it continues to rage around Mariupol and the Ukrainians do need to sustain a conflict which might last a long time and they do need some of those heavier weapons,” he went on.

Having first entered parliament via a 1989 by-election, Hague became John Major’s youngest Cabinet Minister in 1995, and Conservative Party Leader in 1997.

Tasked with rebuilding a diminished party after the 1997 Labour landslide, Hague took the Conservatives into the 2001 election but resigned having failed to make any significant gains.

In the coalition years after 2010, Hague returned to Government as Foreign Secretary. Hague stood down from the Commons in 2015 and has since taken up a seat in the House of Lords.

Hague became a Life Peer in 2015, and sits in the House of Lords as a Conservative.