Nigel Farage the new political leader of the UK’s Reform party said on Friday, that the West ‘Provoked’ Putin to Invade Ukraine.
He made the remarks during an interview with the BBC’s Panorama program on Friday.
The interviewer, Nick Robinson, challenged Farage about remarks he made in 2014 in which he stated his admiration for Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Farage said that while he personally disliked the Russian leader, he “admired him as a political operator” because of the extent of the control he had succeeded in achieving over Russia.
Robinson then asked Farage about a social media post he made in February 2022 in the immediate aftermath of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
In the post, Farage suggested the cause had been poking “the Russian bear with a stick” – a reference to the EU and NATO’s eastward expansion.
Farage answered: “I stood up in the European Parliament in 2014 and I said, and I quote, ‘there will be a war in Ukraine.’
Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union was giving this man a reason to say to the Russian people, ‘They’re coming for us again,’ and to go to war.”
Pressed by Robinson if he meant that “we [in the West] provoked the invasion of Ukraine”, Farage replied: “Yes.”
He then added: “We caused this war. Of course it is his [Putin’s] fault, but he has used what we have done as an excuse.”
Farage’s views on the war in Ukraine are in stark contrast to that of most UK politicians who have long accused the Reform leader of being an apologist for the Russian president and, perhaps ironically, a vociferous supporter of former US president Donald Trump.
Earlier this year, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said it was “clearly ridiculous” [for Putin] to blame the West for the war. “Russia carried out an illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine,” he asserted.
