Vladimir Putin has gone “full tonto”, the Defence Secretary has suggested following the latest escalation in the Ukraine crisis.
Ben Wallace said the Russian president has made the mistake of having no allies in his actions, comparing him to Tsar Nicholas I during the Crimean War.
Mr Wallace, a former Scots Guards officer, said his regiment had “kicked the backside” of the tsar in the Crimea and “we can always do it again”.
The unguarded comments came as the Cabinet minister chatted with serving military personnel at the Horse Guards building in Westminster.
He said: “It’s going to be a busy Army.
“Unfortunately we’ve got a busy adversary now in Putin, who has gone full tonto.”
Mr Wallace said the UK has 1,000 personnel on stand-by to respond to the crisis, adding: “The Scots Guards kicked the backside of Tsar Nicholas I in 1853 in Crimea – we can always do it again.”
He continued: “Tsar Nicholas I made the same mistake Putin did… he had no friends, no alliances.”
The Defence Secretary’s comments came in a room dominated by a large painting depicting the Battle of Inkerman, a major engagement during the Crimean War.
Mr Wallace’s assessment of Mr Putin’s mental state came after Boris Johnson accused the Russian leader of being “in an illogical and irrational frame of mind”.
Former Nato secretary-general Anders Fogh Rasmussen also suggested Mr Putin could be unhinged.
“I mean the Russian behaviour right now, it’s not rational, it’s not logical, so I wouldn’t exclude the possibility that Putin has gone crazy,” the former prime minister of Denmark told ITV’s Peston.
“And we saw recently how he actually humiliated his advisers so I don’t think we are confronted with a man who is thinking along rational lines.”
Earlier, Mr Wallace told reporters he was keeping the possibility of sending further weapons to Ukraine “under constant review”, adding: “We’re in a pretty good position to deliver any type of aid pretty quickly to Ukraine, no matter what that aid is.”
He suggested that Russian forces invading Ukraine could be followed by a mobile crematorium to help disguise the number of casualties inflicted during the potential war.
“Fundamentally, when you have over 60% of your combat forces poised on the borders of another state, the overwhelming scale of the Russian intimidation and forces – including some pretty horrendous weapons systems – are pretty worrying.
“And we also expect to see some of the things they’ve done previously. Previously, they’ve deployed mobile crematoriums to follow troops around the battlefield, which in anyone’s book is chilling.
“If I was a soldier, and knew that my generals had so little faith in me that they followed me around the battlefield in a mobile crematorium, or I was the mother or a father of a son, potentially deployed into a combat zone, and my government thought that the way to cover up loss was a mobile crematorium – I’d be deeply, deeply worried.”
Why are you making commenting on The National only available to subscribers?
We know there are thousands of National readers who want to debate, argue and go back and forth in the comments section of our stories. We’ve got the most informed readers in Scotland, asking each other the big questions about the future of our country.
Unfortunately, though, these important debates are being spoiled by a vocal minority of trolls who aren’t really interested in the issues, try to derail the conversations, register under fake names, and post vile abuse.
So that’s why we’ve decided to make the ability to comment only available to our paying subscribers. That way, all the trolls who post abuse on our website will have to pay if they want to join the debate – and risk a permanent ban from the account that they subscribe with.
The conversation will go back to what it should be about – people who care passionately about the issues, but disagree constructively on what we should do about them. Let’s get that debate started!
Callum Baird, Editor of The National
Comments: Our rules
We want our comments to be a lively and valuable part of our community - a place where readers can debate and engage with the most important local issues. The ability to comment on our stories is a privilege, not a right, however, and that privilege may be withdrawn if it is abused or misused.
Please report any comments that break our rules.
Read the rules here