Ben Wallace, Secretary of State for Defence of the United Kingdom, has said that on 11 February, at a meeting with a Russian counterpart in Moscow, he received false assurances from Sergei Shoigu that Russia was not going to attack Ukraine.

According to Wallace, he received assurances in Moscow that Russia would not invade Ukraine, but, as the British Defence Secretary noted, both sides knew that this was a lie.

Wallace described Shoigu's words as a "demonstration of bullying or strength, which is: I'm going to lie to you, you know I'm lying and I know you know I'm lying and I'm still going to lie to you.

"I think it was about saying, 'I'm powerful,'" Wallace said in the BBC documentary Putin vs the West;

Wallace specified that the "fairly chilling but direct lie" had confirmed his belief that Russia would invade Ukraine.

While leaving the meeting, Wallace noted, Russian General Valery Gerasimov told him that "never again will we be humiliated."

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said in the same documentary that Russian President Vladimir Putin had threatened him with a missile attack in a phone call ahead of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.