Minister of State for the Armed Forces and Member of the Parliament of UK Mr.James Heappay visited Mongolia yesterday /2023.09.28/ at the invitation of the Minister of Defense of Mongolia G.Saikhanbayar.

During his visit, we had an interview about the possibility of cooperation and development of the defense sector of the two countries, as well as the Russian-Ukrainian war.

"THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN OUR TWO MILITARIES IS STRONGER THAN IT'S EVER BEEN"

- There is a Mongolian proverb “If someone arrived when it was raining, he is the lucky one”. Also, it seems like you brought London rain in Ulaanbaatar during your visit.

- I agree with that proverb. It's not much rainier than in Mongolia. Just another thing that the British and Mongolian people have in common is an unstinting belief that skin is waterproof.

What is the purpose of your visit In Mongolia?

To make friends. Five years ago, the UK decided that we were going to change our foreign policy and think more globally about the way that we do our business. We recognized that an ever-larger proportion of our trade would come from the Indo-Pacific region, if you've made that deduction then you start to see actually our security and prosperity are interlinked. So, we need partnerships in the region that are based on trade but are also based on security. And that's why I'm here to talk to the Mongolian government about how we bring that to life.

As we know, this year is the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between our two countries. How would you compare our defense relations of our countries compared to the past defense relations and the current time?

So compared to the past, the relationship between our two militaries is stronger than it's ever been. But that is more of a reflection of the fact that our militaries traditionally haven't had much of a relationship at all.

So, progress has been made in that there is now some relationship. The British Army was here on exercise Han Quest earlier this year. We have opportunities for Mongolian soldiers to train in British military academies. We are looking at how we develop our partnership in support of Mongolia's peacekeeping ambitions. So, we've gone from not very much at all to something, and that's to be celebrated. But the reason I'm here is I think we can do better than something and do quite a lot together. That's in our mutual interests and to our mutual advantage.

So, what is Britain's recent stance on the Russian and Ukrainian war?

So, we're clear that in February 2021 Ukraine was living peacefully within its own borders and its neighbor decided to mobilize 140,000 troops and invade and that's an outrage.

The UK started to donate lethal aid initially with anti-tank shoulder-launched weapons, and in doing that others were encouraged to donate similar systems, and then air defense, artillery, tanks, missiles, and then longer-range missiles, now there's an international coalition in the process of delivering fighter jets of that we're really proud of the role we've played in leading the international community through each of those capability thresholds and growing support for what Ukraine is asking for.

We're full of admiration for the way that the Ukrainian people have taken that international support and through their own courage and determination they've pushed the Russians back from the initial attack on Kyiv. They've pushed the Russians back in Kharkiv. They've held the Russian advance in the Donbass and denied the Russian army Bakhmut and now they are recovering their territory a meter at a time but every day they are moving forward and eventually, they will win I'm certain of that.

The reality is that Putin thinks that he can outweigh the West, that we will all get bored and give up. That won't happen. The UK and the rest of the countries in the world who donate in support of the Ukrainian cause are clear that we'll give whatever it takes for as long as it takes for this to end on President Zelensky's terms.

Meanwhile, Putin deceived the Russian people by telling them that this was a three-day special military operation. Well, over 600 days into his three-day operation, he still hasn't achieved anything that he set out to achieve.

Yet, across Russia, and probably in towns just over the border where they might be reading your reports, there are already graves of Russian soldiers who have died in this illegal war that is entirely an exercise in Putin's vanity. The Ukrainians won't give up. Their donors won't give up. The way to stop further loss of Russian life is for Putin to leave Ukraine.

As you know Mongolia and Russia have a very brotherly and historic relationship and as a neighboring country current war is affecting us economically. I would like to hear your opinion about this.

I believe in a nation's sovereignty and a nation's freedom to choose who its friends are, and what alliances it keeps and it would be hypocritical to argue so passionately for Ukraine and then to not make the same point to you. It's Mongolia's business who your friends are and whether you are friends with the Russians, that doesn't matter, because I think that you are a democracy, you value freedom, you value your sovereignty. You want to be our friend, that’s every reason for me to come and seek to develop and strengthen our friendship.

We as freedom-loving democracies believe that is my right or your right, it is everybody's right to seek whatever relationships internationally they want. But what we saw in Ukraine was Russia somehow thought it had a right to tell Ukraine who its friends could be, and what clubs it could join and so my challenge would be you've heard from me that I think Mongolia should pursue whatever relationships it wishes, but we should be really wary if at any point Russia tries to tell you what relationships you should maintain because that's an erosion of your freedom and sovereignty as a nation.

"WE ARE LIVING IN AN AGE WHERE WE ARE RETURNING TO GREAT POWER COMPETITION"

There has been talk in recent years that there will be a new Cold War happening soon. In your opinion, do you think that could happen?

Not between the West and Russia. No. I think that we have to be really clear that our support for Ukraine is about making sure that Putin fails in Ukraine. There's no desire to weaken Russia or to meddle in Russia's internal affairs. If Putin had never invaded Ukraine, the West would not have mobilized to support the Ukrainians in the way that we have. So I don't see any Cold War emerging there. But I do think that we are living in an age where we are returning to great power competition. I don't think that is necessarily confrontation. In fact, the UK is very careful to say that it's a challenging competition, but it is also a perfectly understandable evolution given how China's economy and prominence on the global stage is growing. But it is, I think, inescapably the case that the US and China are in quite fierce competition. And I think for the rest of us, we're working out how we navigate the opportunity of working with China and allowing China to take its place as a global power, whilst also making sure that we challenge China when they seek to undermine the rules-based order that we all believe in there was a lot in that.

Most of the big international organizations talk about the importance of the world-based international system and world-based governance, but also recently in the regions, other countries, the neighboring countries, want to create their own associations, and how it is going to affect international relations?

So, I think we're sort of in an age of mini-lateralism, everybody wants to establish a group that has a membership that is aligned around a certain issue and they feel that helps them advance their cause either in trade or security or diplomacy. I don't think that's a bad thing. In fact, I think it probably makes our international structures more resilient.

There is an important distinction. The aim of those countries in establishing those mini-lateral groupings is that they support a rules-based international order enshrined in the Charter of the UN, where countries are doing it with a view to undermining the rules-based order that has kept the world broadly safe and prosperous for the last 70 years. I think that we in the UK and many of our friends around the world have a real problem with that because when countries do that, they're not doing that to advance the cause of the international system and to try to make a world that is fairer and safer. They're invariably doing it nakedly in their own national self-interest.

After the Brexit happened what were the advantages or disadvantages? Were there unprecedented results of the Brexit? How do you see that?

Well, the consequence of a referendum, a vote in the UK was that a majority of people decided that they wanted to leave the European Union. And in a democracy, if you ask the public a question, you have to respect the answer that they give you. I think that no matter what part of the debate that people took, it was hotly contested. We made the decision and that has allowed the UK to think about our foreign policy far more broadly than our relationship within the EU.

And as somebody who now has the enormous pleasure of traveling around the world representing the UK interest, what's really interesting is that the whole world saw that as a moment when the UK would reappear and reemerge back into a more global set of relationships. So,I personally didn't vote for it, but I was very clear that if my constituents did, I would follow that. I've served in a government for the last five years that has made it their business to deliver on the will of the British people.

My personal reflection five years on is that the UK is winning new friends around the world. I think that is a fantastic thing and gives us enormous opportunities to trade more widely, to build security and defense partnerships more widely, to have stronger diplomatic relations in all regions of the world. People would say, you could have done all of that anyway, but whichever side of the debate you're on, the fact is, five years after Brexit, the UK, I think, is more influential and trading more widely than we did previously, and I think that's a good thing.

How do you see that Mongolian army and the peacekeeping mission can advance in the international level? How do you see they can develop and play at the international level?

Mongolia is already more than pulling its weight. For a country of your size, you are the 24th biggest contributor to United Nations peacekeeping missions in the world and that's an amazing thing given that there are many more countries that are bigger than you.

So but the fact is that Mongolia wants to develop that even further, and wants to be an even bigger player in UN peacekeeping missions, that means that there's an opportunity for countries like the UK that want to work with Mongolia to develop that peacekeeping contribution. I think, one of the key takeaways from my visit this week, is that there is a real opportunity for the UK army and for the Mongolian army to work together to develop your peacekeeping capabilities and to see you even more engaged in UN missions around the world.

Thank you for your time.