Wallace: Drive out Putin like a ‘limpet off the rock’
DEFENCE Secretary Ben Wallace yesterday pledged that Britain must help drive Russia’s president Vladimir Putin out of Ukraine like a “limpet off the rock”.
A day after the Russian despot said he was prepared to use nuclear weapons against anyone who interfered, Mr Wallace said: “Putin, having failed in nearly all his objectives, may seek to consolidate what he’s got, sort of fortify and dig in, as he did in 2014, and just be a sort of cancerous growth within the country of Ukraine and make it very hard for people to move out... of those fortified positions.
“If we want this to not happen, we have to help Ukrainians effectively get the limpet off the rock and keep the momentum pushing [Russia] back.” On the day the first
Briton was confirmed to have been killed in the conflict, Mr Wallace also announced that around 8,000 troops from the British Army will conduct exercises across Europe this summer – in one of the largest deployments since the ColdWar.
Threatened
Some 72 Challenger 2 tanks, 12 AS90 tracked artillery guns and 120 Warrior armoured fighting vehicles will be deployed to countries from Finland to North Macedonia.
Tens of thousands of troops from Nato and Joint Expeditionary Force allies are involved in the exercises. Meanwhile, the Kremlin warned yesterday that sending heavy weapons to Ukraine threatened security in Europe.
But Mr Wallace said the British public should not be “too alarmed” by the Russian president’s threat that countries intervening in the Ukraine war will be met with a “lightning fast” response.
He said Putin had made similar comments before and was trying to “lay the groundwork” for an announcement to “cover his failure”.
Mr Wallace said: “He’s going to have to admit if he wants to mobilise more of the Russian people, that it is a war.
“He’s going to have to admit it by trying to blame everybody else, I think that is what he was rolling the pitch for.” However, Nato takes