Desperate Vladimir Putin demands former UK Defence Secretary is arrested for 'justifying terrorism'
Russia has issued an arrest warrant for the British former Defence Secretary for allegedly "justifying terrorism".
Sir Ben Wallace, who served in the role under Boris Johnson, Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak, was sentenced in absentia by Moscow’s Basmanny district court.
The charges are believed to be linked to comments made by the former Tory minister at a security conference in Poland in September.
Addressing the Warsaw Security Forum, Sir Ben said: “Putin is in love with the idea of dominating Ukraine, so we have to help Ukraine have the long-range capabilities to make Crimea unviable."
The ex-Defence Secretary urged Western allies to "choke the life" out of Crimea - which was annexed by Vladimir Putin's forces in 2014.
He added: "We need to smash the Kerch Bridge, because that’s a statue to Putin’s ego.”
The Kerch Bridge is a 12-mile-long dual-span road and railway bridge, which physically connects the occupied territory to the Russian mainland.
It was inaugurated by Mr Putin in 2018 and is widely considered a physical representation of Moscow's grip on the peninsula.
The Kremlin strongly condemned Sir Ben's remarks at the conference, branding them "foolish".
The Russian Foreign Ministry took an even sterner view - claiming they were an “incitement to terrorism”.
Sir Ben had already been ordered to be placed in pre-trial detention in absentia by a Russian court in November - but the directive was only made public this week.
He joins a growing list of around 200 Western officials to have active arrest warrants against them from the Russian state.
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Sir Ben's appearance at the Warsaw Security Forum sparked fury from several Russian state media commentators.
Igor Korotchenko, a top Moscow military analyst, labelled the ex-minister a "terrorist" and an "extremist".
The Kremlin attack dog also called on any cooperative third nation to extradite him if he were to step foot on their territory.
During a live broadcast, he said: "So that if an opportunity arises to capture him... he would be taken to Russia, convicted and sentenced as a terrorist."
Reacting to his sentence in absentia, Sir Ben told Reuters he was "not surprised by this latest Russian stunt at a time when the Kremlin is failing at home and abroad."
"The whole world knows that Russia illegally invaded Ukraine four years," he said, before accusing Moscow of "sending thousands of young Russian men to their deaths all for the sake of Putin's ego".
The arrest warrant comes amid the Kremlin's crackdown on anti-war voices from inside its own borders.
In 2024, Mr Putin's regime signed a law allowing authorities to seize assets of those deemed to be spreading “deliberately false information” about the invasion of Ukraine.
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