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Russia has added former British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace to its national wanted list in connection with what state media described as a terrorism-related criminal investigation.

Some shit you should know before you dig in: If you’re unaware, Ben Wallace served as the UK’s defense secretary from 2019 until August 2023 under three different Conservative prime ministers (Boris Johnson, Liz Truss, and Rishi Sunak), making him one of the most prominent Western defense officials throughout the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Wallace visited Moscow about two weeks before Putin launched the February 2022 invasion (during which Russian defense minister Sergei Shoigu directly lied to Wallace about Putin’s intentions), and Wallace has since remained one of the most vocal Western advocates for boosting military aid to Ukraine. At the Warsaw Security Forum in September 2024, Wallace urged Western allies to help Ukraine develop the long-range strike capabilities needed to destroy the Kerch Bridge that links southern Russia to occupied Crimea (which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014). At the time, he said, “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. We need to smash the cursed bridge.” The Kremlin slammed his comments as “stupid” and “foolish” at the time, while the Russian Foreign Ministry separately described them as “incitement to terrorism.”

What’s going on now: Russian state news agency TASS reported Wednesday that Wallace had been added to the Russian Interior Ministry’s wanted persons database, citing an unnamed law enforcement source who said the investigation was linked to “terrorism-related charges.” The state media reports did not provide further details about the case, and the Russian Interior Ministry’s database listing did not specify which exact criminal article Wallace is being prosecuted under.

The Wednesday announcement is the formal escalation of a process that has been moving slowly through the Russian system for months. Back in October 2024, a regional State Duma member pushed for Wallace’s name to land on the international wanted list over those Warsaw remarks, and a Russian court signed off the following month on holding him in pre-trial detention in absentia. Mediazona (Russian media outlet) has since reported that the formal warrant against Wallace was signed in January.

Wallace, who stepped down from Parliament in 2024 and now works in the defense and security sector, dismissed the move as a politically motivated stunt in emailed comments to Reuters. He said, “I am 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 ago. The Kremlin is sending thousands of young Russian men to their deaths all for the sake of Putin’s ego.”

This all comes as Wallace is just one of at least 150 Western politicians and civil servants currently on the Russian Interior Ministry’s wanted persons database, with the list having grown significantly over the past two years as the Kremlin has expanded its broader crackdown on critics of the war. Putin signed legislation in 2024 that lets Russian authorities seize the property of anyone found guilty of pushing “deliberately false information” about the country’s military, and the same statute sweeps in charges like “justifying terrorism” and circulating “fake news” about the armed forces.