Russia has placed Ben Wallace, the former British Defence Secretary, on a wanted list linked to an unspecified criminal investigation, according to state media reports citing the Russian Interior Ministry’s database.
No further details about the investigation have been disclosed, and Mr Wallace has not yet responded to requests for comment.
Wanted list and previous calls for action
The exact number of foreign officials or public figures on the Russian Interior Ministry’s database of wanted persons is unclear. In 2024, the independent news outlet Mediazona reported that the list included dozens of European politicians and officials, and that the database contained almost 97,000 names. By May 2024, it had grown by a further 9,000 entries. Mediazona also noted that arrest warrants for Mr Wallace had been issued in January 2024.
The development follows a call last October by a regional Russian lawmaker for Mr Wallace to be placed on Russia’s international wanted list. A Russian court subsequently ordered his pre-trial detention in absentia, according to media reports in November. Several other Ukrainian politicians and officials, including former ministers and military leaders, have also been declared wanted by Russia.
Wallace’s comments on the Kerch Bridge
The lawmaker’s demand stemmed from remarks Mr Wallace made at the Warsaw Security Forum in September 2025, in which he advocated for Ukrainian strikes on the Kerch Bridge, which connects southern Russia to Crimea – the peninsula annexed by Moscow from Ukraine in 2014.
“We have to help Ukraine have the long-range capabilities to make Crimea unviable,” Mr Wallace said. “We need to choke the life out of Crimea. And if we do that, I think Putin will realise he’s got something to lose. We need to smash the cursed bridge.” He described the bridge as a “statue to Putin’s ego”.
The Kremlin immediately condemned the remarks. Spokesman Dmitry Peskov called them “stupid” and said the Kremlin did not consider it necessary to comment on statements made by former Western officials. The Russian Foreign Ministry labelled the comments “incitement to terrorism”.
Mr Wallace served as the UK’s Defence Secretary from 2019 until August 2023, holding the post throughout Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Since leaving office, he has remained a vocal advocate for increased military support for Kyiv and a persistent critic of Russian aggression. In a separate incident in March 2022, he was targeted by Russian pranksters who posed as the Ukrainian prime minister; the British government accused Moscow of spreading misinformation through doctored clips.
Renewed drone assaults on Ukraine
The announcement of the wanted listing came as Russia launched more than 100 drones targeting areas of Ukraine on Wednesday, President Volodymyr Zelensky said, hours after another barrage of civilian areas killed at least eight people. “Russia continues its strikes and is doing so brazenly — deliberately targeting our railway infrastructure and civilian sites in our cities,” Zelensky wrote on X.
The overnight attacks struck residential and railway infrastructure in the central Dnipro and northeastern Kharkiv regions, port infrastructure in the southern Odesa region, and energy facilities in the central Poltava region. On Tuesday, Zelensky noted, 14 regions were under attack throughout the day. The scale of the drone campaign has been record-breaking: on 26 May 2025, Russia launched 355 drones in a single large-scale assault, killing at least six people and injuring 24 across multiple oblasts – the most extensive drone strike of the full-scale war.
“It is important to support Ukraine and not remain silent about Russia’s war,” Zelensky said. “Every time the war disappears from the top of the news, it encourages Russia to become even more savage,” he added, in an apparent reference to world attention being diverted by conflicts in the Middle East. Moscow’s attacks on its neighbour are unrelenting, even as US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin claim – without providing evidence – that the war could be approaching an end.
