Russia has placed former British Defence Minister Ben Wallace on a wanted list in connection with an unspecified criminal investigation, according to the Russian Interior Ministry’s database cited by state media.

State-run news agency TASS quoted an unnamed source in law enforcement as saying that the investigation was linked to “terrorism-related charges”. Wallace served as the UK’s defence minister from 2019 until August 2023 and has continued to advocate boosting military support for Kyiv.

In October last year, a regional Russian lawmaker called for Wallace to be put on Russia’s wanted list over comments he made at the Warsaw Security Forum about Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Wallace recommended helping Ukraine carry out a military strike on the bridge linking southern Russia to Crimea, saying: “We need to smash the cursed bridge.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov at the time described Wallace’s remarks as “stupid”. Russia has prosecuted numerous individuals and groups as the Kremlin has cracked down on dissent concerning its narrative of the war in Ukraine.

In 2024, Putin signed a law allowing authorities to confiscate the assets of people convicted of spreading “deliberately false information” about the military. It covers offences such as “justifying terrorism” and spreading “fake news” about the military, and has been used extensively to silence Putin’s critics.

Last year, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) opened a criminal case against exiled oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky, accusing him of creating a “terrorist organisation”. Khodorkovsky said Russia was a “fully fledged totalitarian dictatorship”.

Moscow issued an arrest warrant for the International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor Karim Khan in 2023 after he issued a warrant for Putin’s arrest on war crimes charges. Independent news outlet Mediazona reported that the list includes dozens of European politicians and officials.

Source: www.aljazeera.com