Russia has placed former UK Defence Minister Ben Wallace on a wanted list in connection with an undisclosed criminal investigation, according to a database maintained by the Russian interior ministry. The state news agency TASS reported the development.
An unnamed law enforcement source told TASS that the investigation involves allegations of “terrorism”.
Wallace served as UK Defence Secretary from 2019 — before Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022 — until August 2023. Since leaving office, he has continued to advocate for greater military support for Kyiv and has condemned Russian aggression.
Last October, a Russian lawmaker called for Wallace to be put on the wanted list over remarks he made at the Warsaw Security Forum in September about Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. In that speech, Wallace proposed helping Ukraine mount a military strike on the bridge connecting southern Russia to Crimea.
“We must help Ukraine have long-range capability to make Crimea untenable. We need to squeeze Crimea. And if we do that, I think President Vladimir Putin will realise he has something to lose,” Wallace said. “We need to destroy that damnable bridge.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov at the time called Wallace’s comments “stupid” and stressed that Moscow did not see a need to comment on statements by former Western officials.
Numerous individuals and groups inside and outside Russia have been prosecuted as the Kremlin has intensified its crackdown on dissent concerning the war in Ukraine.
In 2024, President Putin signed a law allowing authorities to confiscate property of those convicted of “deliberately spreading false information” about the military. The law includes crimes such as “justifying terrorism” and spreading “fake news” about the army, and has been widely used to silence Putin’s critics.
Last year, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal case against exiled billionaire Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him of establishing a “terrorist organisation” and planning to seize power by force. The FSB said the charges related to the activities of a group backed by Khodorkovsky that opposes the war in Ukraine. Khodorkovsky called Russia a “complete totalitarian dictatorship” and vowed to “fight for a Russia governed by the rule of law and political pluralism”.
In 2023, Moscow issued an arrest warrant for International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan after he sought an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes.
It remains unclear how many foreign officials or public figures are on the Russian interior ministry’s wanted database. Independent news outlet Mediazona reported that the list includes dozens of European politicians and officials.
