Don’t test us, Wallace tells Putin
Defence Secretary says any ‘existential threat’ will be met with response as he considers extra cash for weapons that halted Russian tanks
BEN WALLACE has warned Vladimir Putin not to “test” the UK, as the Defence Secretary indicated that he could pour more funds into the light weapons wreaking havoc on Russian tanks and aircraft in Ukraine.
In an interview with The Sunday Telegraph, Mr Wallace said the Russian president would be seriously mistaken if he “underestimated” this country’s resolve. He said: “Anything that is an existential threat to Europe would elicit some form of response.”
Today, Boris Johnson issues a plea to world leaders to match their words on Ukraine with action as he sets out a sixpoint plan for tackling the crisis. Writing in The New York Times, the Prime Minister states: “Putin must fail and must be seen to fail in this act of aggression. It is not enough to express our support for the rules-based international order – we must defend it against an attempt to rewrite the rules by military force. The world is watching. It is not future historians but the people of Ukraine who will be our judge.”
Mr Wallace told The Telegraph yesterday: “The thing to say to Putin is don’t underestimate us, don’t test us. History is littered with authoritarian leaders underestimating the wider West and the United Kingdom. He clearly underestimated the international community.
“We must not be afraid of Putin. He is acting irrationally and inflicting horrors on Ukraine. But if we stick together and refuse to be intimidated then I believe he will fail.”
The Defence Secretary’s intervention comes after Mr Johnson warned that Russia’s attack on the Zaporizhzhya nuclear plant last week jeopardised “the safety of all of Europe”.
Separately, Mr Putin yesterday said that any attempt to impose a no-fly zone over Ukraine would make the relevant countries direct “participants of the military conflict”. The Russian foreign ministry yesterday told the West to stop “pumping weapons” into Ukraine in case they fell into terrorist hands.
Ukrainian forces have heralded British-supplied light anti-tank weapons as a crucial part of their defence and social media pictures and videos have shown them being used to destroy armoured vehicles. Mr Wallace said: “The proliferation of precision and technology that allows an NLAW [next generation light anti-tank weapon] to destroy tanks such as T-80s has got to mean you ask questions about where you put your investments.” He insisted “there will always be a role for tanks”, but added that Russia “has also shown how vulnerable its aircraft are to Manpads, portable antiair, as opposed to big anti-air systems”.
Lord Frost, the former Cabinet Office minister, and Sir Michael Fallon, the former defence secretary, both told The Telegraph that overall defence spending must increase.
Asked whether he supported an increase in spending, Mr Wallace said that he had already secured £24 billion of additional defence funding, but added: “I think we’ll look at the lessons of Ukraine. And the Prime Minister has always been open to [the idea that] if the threat changes, of course we look at those funding levels.” Mr Wallace also indicated that Ukraine’s forces may be gaining access to intercepts of Russian communications via telephone calls and messages because of poor radio equipment.
Nato leaders have ruled out imposing a no-fly zone over Ukraine, fearing it would trigger a wider conflagration. But, speaking on Russian television to employees of Aeroflot yesterday, Mr Putin said: “Any movement in this direction will be considered by us as participation in an armed conflict by that country.”
In what is being interpreted as a nuclear threat, he added that imposing a no-fly zone would have “colossal and catastrophic consequences not only for Europe but also the whole world”.
Meanwhile, Antony Blinken, the US secretary of state, met Dmytro Kuleba, the Ukrainian foreign minister, in a show of solidarity. Mr Blinken said that Ukraine was “going to prevail”. And speaking in a private call to US senators, Volodymyr Zelensky made a “desperate plea” for more planes to help his country fight the Russian invasion.
Hopes of ceasefires in the cities of Mariupol and Volnovakha suffered a setback as continued bombardment hampered efforts to evacuate civilians.
The Ministry of Defence said that a proposed Russian ceasefire in Mariupol was likely to be used to “deflect international condemnation” of the invasion and to allow Moscow to reset its forces for a renewed offensive.
Despite the early resistance of the Ukrainian army, the US and other allies are making contingency plans for a Russian victory, according to The Washington Post. The first step involves setting up a government-in-exile in Poland.
Naftali Bennett, the Israeli prime minister, met Mr Putin in Moscow yesterday to discuss the war. Israel has offered to mediate in the conflict, but
Mr Bennett’s officials have previously played down expectations of a breakthrough. Talks between Moscow and Kyiv to seek a way to end the wider conflict will resume tomorrow.
Russia’s foreign ministry threatened to impose what it described as tough, but proportionate, measures against British interests this week over what it called “sanctions hysteria”.
In the meantime, Lord Frost, the former Brexit minister, says Mr Putin thought he could “try it on” because of years of “Western performative diplomacy”. Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, he says: “We let the WHO be taken over by the Chinese but still treated it as neutral on Covid. We let UN human rights bodies be dominated by human rights violators but still behaved as if they were sources of moral authority. We deserted our friends in Afghanistan. No wonder Putin thought he could try it on.”