Britain’s Former Defense Secretary Is Now a Wanted Man in Russia
Russia’s Interior Ministry has issued an arrest warrant for former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace
on charges of “justifying terrorism,” the exiled news outlet Mediazona reported Wednesday.
The warrant, which law enforcement officials have not confirmed, is said to be connected to comments
Wallace made at the Warsaw Security Forum in September of last year.
Speaking at that event, Wallace, who served as Britain’s defense chief from 2019 to 2023, said “Putin is
in love with the idea of dominating Ukraine,” further suggesting the Russian leader possesses a kind of
religious attachment to Crimea.
“So we have to help Ukraine have the long-range capabilities to make Crimea unviable. We need to
choke the life out of Crimea,” Wallace said. “We need to smash the Kerch Bridge, because that’s a statue
to Putin’s ego.”
The Kremlin at the time slammed his comments as “foolish,” while the Russian Foreign Ministry
described them as “incitement to terrorism.”
In October, a Russian State Duma lawmaker called for police to issue a warrant for Wallace’s arrest. The
following month, a Russian court ordered the former British defense chief to be placed in pre-trial
detention in absentia, Mediazona reported.
Mediazona, citing the Interior Ministry’s wanted persons database, reported that an arrest warrant for
Wallace was issued in January.
The British Embassy in Moscow called the accusations against Wallace “completely unacceptable.”
“The U.K. does not stand for intimidation of its citizens,” an embassy spokesperson told The Moscow
Times.
Wallace is among at least 197 Western politicians and civil servants on the Russian police database of
wanted persons, according to Mediazona.
Source: The Moscow Times
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