On 23 July 2024, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced that it had banned entry to 15 British nationals who were accused of “taking anti-Russian positions on defense issues and the topic of the special military operation”, which is the term Russian officials use for Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. One of the banned British citizens was Tom Sharpe, a columnist for The Daily Telegraph who publishes on defense issues. Sharpe is not known to have commented on the ban.