Reform UK leader Nigel Farage has said the West ‘provoked’ Russia's invasion of Ukraine by expanding the European Union and Nato military alliance eastwards.

Farage told 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 Russian people ‘they're coming for us again’. In an interview, Farage was challenged over his judgement and past statements, including when he named Russian President Vladimir Putin as the world leader he most admired in 2014.

"I said I disliked him as a person, but admired him as a political operator because he's managed to take control of running Russia," Mr Farage said.He was then pressed over a social media post in February 2022, when he claimed the Russian invasion of Ukraine was "a consequence of EU and Nato expansion".

Mr Farage said he had been arguing since the 1990s that "the ever eastward expansion" of the Nato military alliance and the EU was giving President Putin "a reason to [give to] his Russian people to say they're coming for us again and to go 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 was “echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine".

Labour defence spokesman John Healey said Mr Farage's comments made him 'unfit for any political office in our country, let alone leading a serious party in Parliament'. Also responding to Farage's claim was former Nato Secretary General Lord George Robertson, who accused him of 'parroting the Kremlin Line' and 'producing new excuses for the brutal, unprovoked attack'. During the interview, the Reform UK leader claimed Lord Robertson had agreed the war was caused by the expansion of the EU. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World Tonight, the Labour peer denied saying it and described Mr Farage's statement as 'complete nonsense'.

'Saying that we provoked Russia is like saying that if you buy a burglar alarm, in some way you provoke burglars'. 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 always defended Putin", he said. "Every vote for Farage is celebrated in Moscow!"

After the interview aired on Friday, Farage said on X (formerly Twitter) that he was "one of the few figures that have been consistent & honest about the war with Russia". Alongside the new statement, he reposted a speech in the European Parliament from 2014 in which he called for the West to "stop playing war games with Putin." Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. It followed the occupation of the Crimea and Donbas regions in 2014.