According to Becky Morton, Political reporter
Nigel Farage has been criticized for suggesting the West “provoked” Russia’s invasion of Ukraine by expanding the EU and NATO military alliance to the east.
Britain’s Reform leader told the BBC that “of course” the war was President Vladimir Putin’s fault.
But he added that the expansion of the EU and NATO gave him a “reason” to tell the Russians “they are coming for us again”.
Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly said Mr Farage had criticized Mr Putin’s “bad luck” for going to war and Labor called him “unfit” for political office.
The former UKIP leader later said he was one of the “few figures” who were “consistent and honest” on the issue.
In an interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, Mr Farage has been challenged on past judgments and statements, including when he named Russian President Vladimir Putin as his most admired world leader in 2014.
“I said I didn’t like him as a person but admired him as a political operator because he was able to control Russia,” Mr Farage said.
He was then pressed social media posts in February 2022while he claimed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was “a consequence of EU and NATO expansion”.
Mr Farage said he had argued since the 1990s that the “continued eastward expansion” of the NATO and EU military alliance gave President Putin “an excuse to (give) the Russians to say they are coming again and going to war”.
He added: “We provoked this war. Of course, it’s (President Putin’s) fault.”
Responding to the interview, Conservative Home Secretary James Cleverly said Mr Farage “talked about Putin’s justification for his brutal invasion of Ukraine”.
Labour’s defense spokesman John Healey said Mr Farage’s comments made him “unfit for political office in our country, let alone leading a serious party in Parliament.”
Former NATO Secretary General Lord Robertson accused Mr Farage of “burning the Kremlin’s Line” and “generating new excuses for brutal and unprovoked attacks”.
During the interview, the UK Reform leader claimed Lord Robertson had agreed that the war was caused by EU expansion.
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight, the Labor peer rejected the remarks and described Mr Farage’s claims as “complete nonsense”.
“Saying we’re provoking Russia is like saying if you buy a burglar alarm, in some ways you’re provoking a burglar.”
Guy Verhofstadt, a prominent Belgian MEP and frequent critic of Mr Farage, also accused him of repeating “Kremlin talking points”.
“In the European Parliament, Farage is always defending Putin”, he said.
“Every vote for Farage is celebrated in Moscow!”
After the interview aired on Friday, Mr Farage said on X (formerly Twitter) that he was “one of the few figures who has been consistent and honest about the war with Russia”.
In addition to the new statement, he retweeted a speech to the European Parliament from 2014 in which he urged the West to “stop playing war games with Putin.”
Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It was after the occupation of Crimea and Donbas region in 2014.
Ukraine is not a member of EU or NATO, which consists of 32 countries in Europe and North America.
However, the country applied to join the bloc after the Russian invasion.
NATO was formed in 1949 by 12 countries, including the US, UK, Canada and France.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, many Eastern European countries joined including Hungary, Poland and Estonia.
The EU has also expanded since the 1990s, with several eastern European countries joining in 2004.
In the interview, Mr Farage also accused the Conservatives of failing to deliver on Brexit.
As leader of UKIP, he was a key figure in the campaign to leave the EU.
While the issue dominated the 2019 general election, with Boris Johnson campaigning on the slogan “Get Brexit Done”, it has not featured prominently in the current campaign.
Asked if he stood by his previous claim that Brexit was a failure, Mr Farage said: “No, it’s not a failure, but we failed to deliver.
“It cannot be a failure. We have left the European Union. Now we have our own government.”
But he added: “Brexit has failed those who voted, believing that immigration numbers would decrease.”
Net migration – the difference between the number of people living in the UK and those leaving – is rising sharply from 2021, when the UK leaves the EU.
This has been driven by non-EU citizens coming to the UK.
Net migration reached a record level in 2022 before slowing slightly the following year.
Reform UK has said back a freeze on non-essential immigration to relieve pressure on housing and public services, increase wages and “protect our cultural identity and values”.
Mr Farage also criticized the Conservatives for “binning” his promise to scrap 4,000 EU laws.
Pressed on whether he was only blaming someone else, Mr Farage said: “If you put it on me it would be very different. Of course he didn’t do it.
“The Conservative Party never believed in Brexit… They saw it as a political opportunity, and they failed to deliver.”
Mr Farage also faced questions about his stance on climate change and whether he believed it was not a “crisis”.
“I think since the late 1980s, there may have been some hype about it, and I think it was wrong,” he said.
“All we’re talking about is fear rather than solutions.”
He added: “We spend a lot of time hyperventilating about the problem rather than thinking practically and logically about what we can do.”
Mr Farage has slammed Labour’s zero-sum and Tory policies as “nonsense”, claiming £30bn a year could be saved by dropping climate pledges.
He was also challenged on the Reformation inspection procedure after the party dropped some potential parliamentary candidates for inappropriate or offensive comments.
The party blamed the company it hired to conduct background checks on prospective candidates, claiming it failed to conduct vetting before the election.
Asked why some people with extreme views seem to be rallying for his cause, Mr Farage said: “They’re not there because of me.”
Despite founding the party and being the honorary president, he insisted: “I have not had any involvement with the party on a daily basis for more than three years.
“These candidates were recruited before I said that I would play an active role in the party.”
Mr Farage took over as Reform leader from Richard Tice in just the second full week of the election campaign.
At the same time he announced that he would stand as his own candidate in Clacton after previously saying he would not stand in the July election.
The BBC interviews the leaders of the main parties during the election in Panorama Interviews with Nick Robinson. The interview with Nigel Farage airs at 19:00 on BBC One on Friday and is available on BBC iPlayer.
You can find the full list of candidates standing in the Clacton constituency here.
