If you understand the man you will find the solution to this war
Destroying the Kerch Bridge would mean that Russian supplies for Crimea would have to travel a far more dangerous route, closer to the war’s front line
02 October 2025
Clear signs of a deliberate shift in policy from the Kremlin have appeared over the past six months. Since May, counter-terrorism police have been investigating fires at properties linked to the Prime Minister. In Essex last month three people were arrested on suspicion of spying for Russia. We have seen Russia deliberately fly drones above Polish territory and fighter jets into Estonian airspace.
Individually these incidents are serious enough but collectively they indicate, to me, a determined and targeted escalation by the Kremlin. Putin, no doubt emboldened by Trump’s ever-changing hollow rhetoric, wants to warn the West to back off so that he can finish the job he started in Ukraine. This is a sign of things to come and it is what happens when the President of the Russian Federation believes he has nothing to lose.
Meanwhile under the chandeliers at the UK Foreign Office the usual bed-wetting mandarins are holding back our support for Ukraine. Already this year they have blocked defence exports to Kyiv and operations that could have helped our Allies. Our Ambassador to Ukraine, until he stepped down today, has been missing in action. He was one of the very people who opposed my arming of Ukraine and didn’t believe Putin would ever invade.
Russia senses this limp attitude. And for a bully like Putin this supports his view that the West doesn’t really mean it and will flake away eventually.
Fortunately the UK Foreign Office is not the only player in this game. The Minister for Foreign Affairs of Poland, Radek Sikorski, recently took himself to the UN and made the Polish position absolutely clear.
“If another missile or aircraft enters our airspace without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on Nato territory, please don’t come here to whine about it,” he said. “You have been warned.”
Sikorski understands the art of deterrence. It wasn’t just the message that mattered but by delivering it at the UN, in front of the nations of the world, he was preventing Russian attempts to play the victim (which Putin loves to do) should Poland legitimately defend its airspace. The Polish minister was concise, clear and determined.
The time has come to drive it home to Putin that he does have something to lose. The problem has been that all along the West has been failing to read him properly. Putin is a sad little bully who lives in a world of fantasy and romantic Tsarist bilge.
The clues have always been there. The horseback hunting trips stripped to the waist in Siberia. The over-the-top palace on the Black Sea. The child-like essays on Russian destiny written by his own hand, warping history to fit his narrative.
If you understand the man you will find the solution to this war. If you take the time to read one of Putin’s error-riddled speeches and essays, you will be able to understand what makes him tick. It is clear that it’s Putin’s ego and fantasies that have taken Russia to where it is now.
At the heart of the dictator’s beliefs is an obsession with Crimea, Putin’s jewel in the long-lost Russian imperial crown. As he said in 2014:
“Crimea, the ancient Korsun or Chersonesus, and Sevastopol have invaluable civilisational and even sacral importance for Russia, like the Temple Mount in Jerusalem for the followers of Islam and Judaism… this is how we will always consider it.”
As long as Crimea is safe then Putin is safe. He can keep his meat grinder working on the front line from Luhansk to Kherson. So we must place Crimea in jeopardy. Ukraine should focus, almost entirely, on making Crimea uninhabitable and unviable from a Russian point of view. Ukraine does not need to invade the peninsula (which I concede would be incredibly difficult if not impossible) but they should choke it to death. The Russian navy has already been driven out of Sevastopol. Crimean water and power supplies must be destroyed. The Kerch bridges must finally be brought down, so that supplies must run the gauntlet of Ukrainian fire along the land bridge north of the Azov. Ukraine must rain down drones on Crimea on a daily basis.
Crimea must be the focus. If necessary, risks should be taken elsewhere. We in the UK should help supply the drones – both sea and air. The German Chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said that the potentially bridge-busting Taurus missile should be sent to Ukraine when he was in opposition. He should send it now.
If there was ever a technology suited to this way of warfare it is drones (cruise missiles like the Taurus and Storm Shadow are essentially faster, better drones). For now, the West and Ukraine have the edge in this area and this is a fight that can be won.
All this is easier said than done, I am sure, but a siege of Crimea will present Putin with a strategic dilemma. It may ultimately bring him to realise that peace is in his interest as well as ours.
Sir Ben Wallace served as Secretary of State for Defence from 2019 to 2023. He is a former British Army officer
Well, at least he has a practical solution. And it’s one that is quite similar to that of Ben Hodges.
I disagree with his view that Ukraine can’t invade and retake Crimea though. I’m sure they have a plan for it. A key problem they have is an old one : manpower shortages, which they should have addressed by now. Where the feckless allies could have helped is in the provision of contract troops and mercs. Ukraine is at least 10 – 12 divisions short.
A complete fucking asshole writes :
Chris Wood
I feel for the Ukrainians, but we’re skint and they are thousands of miles away. Stay out of it. British military interventions of the last 30 years have been disastrous.
Charlie Wimbledon
Reply to Chris Wood
No. Ukraine is the dam holding back murderous Russia from our doorstep.
Andy King
Sir Ben, thank you for the interesting article, but your conclusion that Putin is driven by ego and fantasy may be superficial. A number of signs suggest he suffers from paranoia and senile dementia, stemming from his long tenure in power, advanced age, or possible medical complications, but his subjects either don’t notice or are afraid to acknowledge it. Incidentally, Trump, who has known him for many years, publicly acknowledged that Putin has changed.
Anthony Eastwood
Reply to Andy King
Trump has been a consistent Putin apologist and he is the one who has finally been made to open his eyes.
Simon Hodgkinson
Send tomahawk cruise missiles with nukes at the discretion of the Ukrainians to use to replace the ones they gave away and they can create another Chernobyl on Russian soil.
Melanie Greenwood
Only when a missile lands smack in the middle of the Kremlin Will Putin experience the reality of this war. He’s happy to obliterate the Ukraine and it’s people kill Russian, north Korean and Ukrainian military without batting an eyelid.
He’s a lunatic, but he must have an Achilles heel we’ve just got to find it!
john gornall
Ben Wallace advocates – correctly – ‘make Crimea uninhabitable’.
This tactic is working in Gaza.
It ought to work against Russia.
The Lionheart
A good plan to dent Putin’s ego . I would rejoice to see the Kerch Bridge blown to smithereens. Preferably when Putin is driving his Tonka Toy truck along it.
bonzo dog
Spot on assessment. I really don’t understand why the Kerch Bridge has not been totally destroyed in several positions.
Matthew Matic
Is Putin a sad little bully? He seems to be a western asset.
He has rearmed and reinvigorated NATO, enlarged it and turned the Baltic into a NATO lake: he has caused a massive brain drain from Russia; he has killed or wounded a million young citizens; he has destroyed the Russian stockpile of tanks and artillery and a large part of its strategic bomber force; he has lost much of Russia’s markets for hydrocarbons (and is now losing the supply to the rest) and wrecked its economy; he has cemented Ukraine’s national identity and inculcated within them a hatred of Russians and then armed Ukraine beyond his worst nightmares; he has put Russia in hoc to North Korea, China and Iran; he has increased the world’s dislike and distrust of Russia including putting Trump’s back up.
The only conclusion is that he is a plant (in every sense of the word).
Charlie Wimbledon
TLAM opens up a whole new bunch of juicy Russian targets. The Kerch bridge is definitely up there.
Strangulation of Crimea combined with choking gasoline production should help hasten the end of Putin’s failed invasion.
Richard Kennedy
Putin is a dictator. He has bet his life on destroying Ukraine. He has failed. He bet his life that NATO would not expand. He lost. He knows that if he backs down, he will lose face, lose credibility and be overthrown. I would imagine that death will follow shortly afterwards. All dictators die in office, or are deposed and die shortly afterwards.
For that single reason, Putin will not back down. He has no choice but to continue.
simon paulo
Crime and the Kerch bridge are a glaring weak point for Putin. Destruction of the bridge is a top priority; not just strategically but to lay bare the false mythology of Putin’s dreams to his own populace. Once the bridge has gone, precious Russian resources are diverted from other parts of Ukraine and the Russian occupation of Crimea becomes doomed.
Robert Alan Sutton
Another bridge I would like to see in the water is the railway bridge linking russia with Fat Boy Kim’s democratic Republic. It is the only land link between the two countries and it would be hilarious to see it go.
‘make Crimea uninhabitable’.
I think that this is what Ukraine is striving for.
The first step is already well on its way, to eliminate mafia air defenses. This should be followed by a massive strike on putler’s pet project, sending it to the fishes. The ferries are already pretty much out of action. Destroying the land connection further up north will do the rest. These steps should make the peninsula untenable. This would represent a military and political defeat, and also would prove to be a huge blow domestically. It would open the eyes of even the most brainless fascist cockroach that this war is not only impossible to win, as pronounced by the kremlin and its propaganda organs, but that defeat is on its way.