Responding to comments made on Wednesday by British Defence Secretary Ben Wallace in which he referenced the 19th-century Crimean War, the Russian Defense Ministry urged its UK counterparts to get their historical facts straight. 

Commenting on the escalation of tensions in Ukraine, Wallace – a former member of the Scots Guards – evoked an episode of the Crimean War of 1853-56, when Britain and France allied with Ottoman Turkey to invade Crimea. He said the regiment in which he had served had "kicked the backside of Tsar Nicholas I" and "we can always do it again."