Senator John McGahon- speech from 1 Mar 2022

Lasky-Hirlock, when the drums of war are beating across the European continent once again, death stalks the land across the European continent once again and things will be totally and utterly different from now on. Things won't be the same as they were just a number of weeks ago and there can be absolutely no legitimate return for Vladimir Putin to the world of political respectability after this is finished. He must be treated as an outcast and he must be confined to the same depths of depravity as other dictators who haunt our history. An attack on a democratic and a sovereign nation is an attack on all of us. It is an attack on everybody who believes in freedom and the democratic right of a nation to set and chart its own course. Ukraine cannot be left orphaned by the West. That is why I believe in the short to medium term we should be seriously considering and supporting its accession to the European Union and we should also be supporting its application to join NATO as well. In terms of NATO, when we see some of the comments about NATO war mongering and NATO aggression, God forbid small countries ministers who are on the doorstep of a sleeping Russian giant for wanting to come together to have a bit of shared joint protection in the face of unwarranted Russian aggression. And the last few days has certainly proven that. And indeed, over the course of the last week, Putin has fostered more unity among the democratic nations of this world than in the last 20 years has seen. His legacy on Ukraine will not be the legacy that he determined. His legacy will be a more united and a stronger European Union and international community. That is what his legacy will be after his attack on Ukraine. But the thing about it is that there can be no complacency when it comes to Russia from now on. They have shown their hand. Putin has been backed into a corner and he is perhaps more dangerous than ever before because he has been backed into such a corner by the international community. What I would say about this and what I believe the reason why this is happening is, Putin cannot let Ukraine be a success story on his doorstep. Putin cannot let Ukraine be a democratic success story because that is the one way he will be toppled in his own country. When the Russian people start to look at it and say, well, there's a country like Ukraine having free democratic elections, why can't we do the same? That is why Putin is in Ukraine today. It is to protect his own political ability in the Russian country and we and the world have to stand up to his aggression.