North MP Jamie Stone is asking for Russia’s navy models and mercenaries to be branded as terrorist organisations.
Mr Stone, the Liberal Democrats’ spokesperson for defence, urged the Ministry of Defence to take the motion in response to atrocities being dedicated in Ukraine.
His celebration is proposing using proscription orders as a part of a brand new bundle of measures. These embody Russian diplomats based mostly in Britain being expelled and the UK main calls on the Worldwide Felony Courtroom (ICC) for an arrest warrant to be issued for Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin.
“We have now all seen the appalling atrocities which have been uncovered in Bucha,” mentioned Mr Stone, the MP for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross. “Solely not too long ago, 60 individuals have been killed in a faculty in Luhansk following Russian shelling.
“Is it not time for the Russian navy models and mercenary teams, together with the Wagner group [a paramilitary organisation] with their sinister demise’s head, to be proscribed as terrorist organisations?
“We can’t provide empty phrases whereas Putin and his troopers proceed to butcher harmless Ukrainian civilians.
“By proscribing these teams, they are going to be branded as terrorist organisations. This may make anybody participating with them, anyplace on the planet, in violation of UK regulation – placing stress on those that have dealings with Putin’s mercenaries to choose a aspect.
“We should additionally work with our worldwide companions to ramp up the stress on Putin. Which means following our allies and expelling Russian diplomats, and treating Putin because the worldwide prison he’s by main requires the ICC to concern a global arrest warrant.”
The Terrorism Act 2000 supplies the premise on which teams might be proscribed, together with “the necessity to assist different members of the worldwide neighborhood within the international fights towards terrorism”.
Members of the Wagner group have been reportedly despatched into Ukraine in an try and assassinate the nation’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky. They’re additionally believed to have been lively in different international locations all over the world.
In a separate transfer, Mr Stone has highlighted the lots of of Ukrainian refugees who’re caught in accommodations as much as a month after arriving in Scotland. He says many have discovered themselves victims of presidency forms.
In a query to house secretary Priti Patel, Mr Stone urged the UK authorities to speak with the Scottish Authorities with the view to checking out the backlog of refugee instances.
“Even within the village of Golspie, in my constituency, seven households from Ukraine are quickly to be welcomed,” Mr Stone mentioned. “The Highlands has an extended historical past of welcoming refugees from all corners of the world, and the fallout from the disaster in Ukraine is not going to change that.
“The issue shouldn’t be the dearth of will to assist these households however the critical blockage, bottlenecks and pink tape alongside the way in which. The Scottish Authorities’s Tremendous Sponsor scheme is laudable in intent, however in apply it’s leaving Ukrainians stranded in accommodations.
“Each second wasted with authorities incompetence is one other second a civilian household has to stay ready in limbo. It’s time for each governments to place their heads collectively to expedite these instances as a matter of urgency.”
