The UK is guilty of sleepwalking into the crisis in Ukraine and has not been as active or visible as it should, according to a report into the British and European approach to the crisis by the main Lords committee on foreign affairs, the Guardian reported.
The report – the fullest evaluation of the Ukraine crisis to emerge from parliament – also finds that expertise within the Foreign Office towards Russia has diminished significantly, and according to the committee chairman, Lord Tugendhat, “led to a catastrophic misreading of the mood in the run-up to the crisis”.
The committee also warns that as a signatory to the 1994 Budapest memorandum, setting out the protection Europe would give Ukraine, “the UK had a particular responsibility towards the country and it has not been as active or as visible as it could have been”.