Wallace has been one of the most outspoken public critics of Vladimir Putin over his attack on Ukraine, now entering its fifth month.
Earlier on Wednesday, the defense secretary, now being tipped as a possible successor to Boris Johnson as Tory leader and prime minister, said he believes Russian troop losses are now 25,000.
In further candid comments on President Putin’s strategy and capabilities, Wallace said Russia is still dangerous, but ridiculed the condition of some of its “old” equipment and wondered how it could occupy territory it had conquered. .
Speaking to reporters at the NATO summit in Madrid on Wednesday afternoon, he said: “When it comes down to them making a few miles of progress at the cost of 25,000 dead, it’s a disaster for them and they’re not even done yet. started occupying.
“They have bombed the infrastructure – how are they going to support their military? Usually destroying your water supply or any food source is not a good thing. They haven’t even started occupying yet and all they need to occupy are minefields and bulldozed buildings.”
On the state of Russian military equipment, he added that much of it was “old, old and dangerous”. He described an armored train deployed by the Russians that he believes came straight out of the World War II classic movie Where Eagles Dare.
He said: “The ammunition they use now is so old it blows up in tubes. The reason some artillery is no longer accurate is that it is so old that it cannot cover the full range.
‘Have you seen their armored train? Straight from Where Eagles Dare? It’s this well-armored train that, I think, is hurtling toward Crimea, armed with anti-aircraft guns. There they are.”
Following US President Joe Biden’s commitment to increase NATO’s troop deployment in Europe – including two more F-35 fighter jet squadrons in the UK – Mr Wallace also revealed further details on how Britain is making its allocations to the alliance. would step up.
This includes deploying hundreds of additional troops to defend NATO’s borders in Estonia and a first star headquarters in the Baltic state. That’s in addition to the more than 1,600 troops already deployed to Estonia.
Britain will also dedicate one of its two aircraft carrier groups to NATO, he said, as well as bolster the air force on Cyrpus to help defend the Black Sea.
The measures come after NATO announced plans at this summit to increase the number of rapid response troops from 40,000 to 300,000 by 2023 to protect the alliance’s eastern flank from Russian aggression.