With the European Parliament voting on the EU Ukraine Association Agreement, which has been postponed for a year, Charles Tannock MEP has demanded the EU be more pro-active in defending Ukraine's sovereignty.
""Having returned yesterday from Kiev, the need for supporting Ukraine against the aggression it is facing from Russia is clearer in my mind than ever," he told MEPs in the chamber.
He continued, "In response to Ukraine's ambitions to move in a westward, democratic, Euro-Atlantic direction, Russia is revisiting its imperial past, refusing to accept that its large neighbour, in the 21st century, is an independent sovereign nation that has the right to take charge of its own destiny.
"The refusal of Russia to accept this and work within this internationally accepted legal paradigm should concern us all as democrats."
Tannock said that he saw the current crisis in Ukraine as "part of a wider struggle in which democratic nations on our doorstep are fighting off the revanchist and irredentist ideals of a Putin-led authoritarian and revisionist regime that boasts of a nuclear arsenal."
Demanding action, Tannock told MEPs "Member States within the EU and NATO should begin to take pro-active, rather than reactive, steps in this conflict, sending a message to President Putin that there is hard-power substance behind our rhetoric."
The leading Conservative MEP called on NATO countries to arm the Ukrainian army.
He concluded, "Europe has for far too long relied on the dominance of Russian energy and finance, including my own country. we must now look to diversify away from those dependencies by the means of an EU-coordinated plan in external energy security, just as we have successfully done in uniting the entire union in the support of tough economic sanctions against Russia for its acts of aggression."