The Russian Interior Ministry has placed former British Defence Minister Ben Wallace on a wanted list in its database in connection with an unspecified criminal investigation linked to terrorism-related charges.

Wallace served as the UK's defence minister from 2019 until August 2023, a period that included Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. After leaving office, he continued to advocate boosting military support for Kyiv and condemned Russian aggression.

In October 2025, a regional Russian lawmaker called for Wallace to be put on the wanted list over comments he made at the Warsaw Security Forum about Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. At the forum, Wallace recommended helping Ukraine carry out a military strike on the bridge linking southern Russia to the peninsula.

"We have to help Ukraine have the long-range capabilities to make Crimea unviable. 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." He added: "We need to smash the cursed bridge."

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov described Wallace's remarks as stupid and said Moscow did not consider it necessary to comment on statements by former Western officials. The Russian Interior Ministry's wanted list includes dozens of European politicians and officials.

Numerous individuals and groups inside and outside Russia have been prosecuted as the Kremlin has cracked down on dissent concerning its narrative of the war in Ukraine. In 2024, President Vladimir Putin signed a law allowing authorities to confiscate the assets of people convicted of spreading deliberately false information about the military. The law covers offences such as justifying terrorism and spreading fake news about the military.

Russia's Federal Security Service opened a criminal case last year against exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him of creating a terrorist organisation and plotting to violently seize power. The FSB said the charges related to the activities of a Khodorkovsky-backed group that opposes the war in Ukraine. Khodorkovsky said Russia was a fully fledged totalitarian dictatorship and pledged to fight for a Russia governed by the rule of law and political pluralism.