{"id":289918,"date":"2024-06-22T13:30:43","date_gmt":"2024-06-22T13:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=289918"},"modified":"2024-06-24T06:58:23","modified_gmt":"2024-06-24T06:58:23","slug":"nigel-farage-claims-russia-was-provoked-into-ukraine-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=289918","title":{"rendered":"Nigel Farage claims Russia was provoked into Ukraine war"},"content":{"rendered":"

Peter Walker \u2013 The Guardian June 22, 2024<\/strong><\/h1>\n

Nigel Farage has said the EU and Nato \u201cprovoked\u201d Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine by expanding eastwards, as the Reform UK leader was challenged over a series of policies and beliefs in a sometimes combative TV interview.<\/p>\n

Speaking to BBC\u2019s Panorama on Friday evening, Farage also said Brexit would have benefited the UK economically if he had been running the country, and that many of the Reform candidates criticised for saying offensive things had been \u201cstitched up in the most extraordinary way\u201d.<\/p>\n

Challenged on his beliefs over the invasion of Ukraine, and his stated admiration for Vladimir Putin<\/a>, Farage said he disliked the Russian president personally but \u201cadmired him as a political operator\u201d because of the extent of his control over Russia.<\/p>\n

On why Putin invaded Ukraine, Farage said: \u201cI stood up in the European parliament in 2014 and I said: \u2018There will be a war in Ukraine.\u2019 Why did I say that? It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union<\/a> was giving this man a reason \u2026 to say: \u2018They\u2019re coming for us again,\u2019 and to go to war.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cWe provoked this war. Of course it\u2019s his fault, he\u2019s used what we\u2019ve done as an excuse.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Conservatives, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have long accused Farage of being an apologist for the Russian president.<\/p>\n

James Cleverly, the home secretary, criticised Farage\u2019s comments, saying he was \u201cechoing Putin\u2019s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine\u201d, while the former defence secretary Ben Wallace said the Reform leader was voicing \u201csympathy\u201d to someone who \u201cdeployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain\u201d.<\/p>\n

John Healey, the shadow defence secretary, called the comments \u201cdisgraceful\u201d, adding that Farage has \u201cshown that he would rather lick Vladimir Putin\u2019s boot than stand up for the people of Ukraine. That makes him unfit for any political office in our country, let alone leading a serious party in parliament.\u201d<\/p>\n

Earlier this year Rishi Sunak said it was \u201cclearly ridiculous\u201d to blame the west for the war.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere in the interview, one of a series hosted by Nick Robinson with party leaders, Farage accepted that a claim he made saying the UK had moved from being the \u201cworld\u2019s seventh-biggest exporter to the world\u2019s fourth-biggest exporter\u201d after Brexit referred only to services.<\/p>\n

Asked why exports in goods had not similarly benefited, Farage blamed net zero policies, saying they had \u201cde-industrialised Britain\u201d. On the economic effects of Brexit, he said: \u201cIf you put me in charge it\u2019d be very, very different, but of course they didn\u2019t do that did they?\u201d<\/p>\n

Challenged over his support at the time for Liz Truss\u2019s disastrous mini-budget, Farage praised it for having \u201ca lot of things here that were pro-growth and pro-business\u201d, while saying it was undermined by not including matched cuts in spending.<\/p>\n

Asking about Reform\u2019s own fiscal plans, set out this week in the party\u2019s manifesto<\/a>, Robinson seemed unconvinced by Farage\u2019s explanations as to how the party would cut public spending enough to make mass tax cuts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, number one, we will get people off the unemployment register into work,\u201d Farage said. Robinson replied: \u201cThat\u2019s not going to raise you \u00a3140bn a year. You were on I\u2019m a Celebrity \u2013 you should have been on Fantasy Island.\u201d<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cI stood up in the European parliament in 2014 and I said: \u2018There will be a war in Ukraine.\u2019 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 \u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,91,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-289918","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-russia","category-ukraine"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289918","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=289918"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289918\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":289921,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/289918\/revisions\/289921"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=289918"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=289918"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=289918"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}