Nigel Farage holds some controversial opinions, but his refusal to accept that the Russia-Ukraine war is a simple morality play is in no way as outrageous as it has been depicted. 

Since the Reform UK leader said that the West “provoked” the Kremlin in the run up to the conflict, he has been condemned in heated language by both Conservative and Labour politicians. They claimed that Farage sympathises with Vladimir Putin; with the implication that this standpoint would shock and offend voters, who might otherwise be attracted by Reform’s populist messages on immigration and social issues.

It’s no surprise that the bigger parties take that view. For many years before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, politicians and the media railed against evil Russians. These sullen, unsmiling people were suspicious of western-funded NGOs, they acted assertively in neighbouring countries and they did not express enough enthusiasm for alternative lifestyles.

There was no point in trying to understand how Moscow viewed the world, or thinking about the impact of western policies on the wider region. Russia was just bad and possibly mad.

The fact that some fringe figures on both the left and the right expressed support for Putin made it easier to maintain this uncomplicated outlook. Some activists on the left argued that the Kremlin was a check on US imperialism and unilateralism. Meanwhile, an element on the right believed that Moscow was fighting for traditional values against “woke” liberal ideas. These “useful idiots” only made it simpler to cast Russia as a pariah, even if that alienated Moscow further and caused spikier behaviour.  

Farage does not in fact dispute that the conflict in Ukraine was a war of aggression. Putin chose to invade when other options were available, turning a low intensity conflict in the east of Ukraine into a major conflagration. It is not credible, though, to deny that western countries acted provocatively, particularly in the period following the Euromaidan unrest of 2014. 

The Reform UK leader’s argument centred on NATO’s expansion into eastern European countries, which started rather earlier. But that was certainly a major reason that Russia’s relationship with the West deteriorated. 

This reading of history is not held only by hardcore Putinists. Mikhail Gorbachev clearly believed that NATO betrayed a promise not to move into the countries of the former Soviet bloc. Indeed, the former leader of the USSR claimed that constant western hostility only strengthened Putin’s presidency, when his country might otherwise have moved in a more liberal direction. His opinions were largely shared by former CIA director, Robert Gates.

With the war in Ukraine ongoing, it’s easy to argue that western policy-makers were right to fear Russian aggression, and that neighbouring countries needed the protection of a defensive alliance. The grievances that Putin used to excuse his aggression, though, were not invented, even if they were exaggerated to suit his political aims.

For example, Russia used NATO’s engineering of a unilateral declaration of independence in Kosovo as justification for later flouting the national sovereignty of Georgia and Ukraine. If the West could redraw Serbia’s borders, then the Kremlin did not see why it should be judged by different standards.

The war in Ukraine can be traced back more directly to the events of “Euromaidan”, in 2014. Russia and its supporters described that period as an illegal putsch, while its supporters portrayed it as overthrowing tyranny. We know, though, that Euromaidan involved unseating an elected president through partly violent methods, against the will of many Ukrainian people — who probably formed a majority at the time in eastern and central Ukraine. 

The US, the UK and the EU backed this undemocratic “revolution” without much qualification. In fact, the western countries effectively financed and promoted “regime change” in Ukraine. The US assistant secretary of state, Victoria Nuland, boasted that her government spent $5 billion on bringing about that outcome. And, as events in Kiev developed, American officials were recorded frankly planning the composition of the new administration.  

The civil war that followed was prosecuted initially by Russian-speaking rebels in eastern Ukraine, who were appalled by the prospect of a virulently nationalist Ukrainian regime, containing figures from Neo-Nazi militias. The fact that new ministers immediately introduced legislation intended to remove Russian as an official language hardly eased their apprehensions. Soon, the Kremlin was deeply involved, annexing Crimea and backing separatist movements in Donetsk and Lugansk. 

This complicated picture was portrayed by politicians and media in the West as a simple struggle between right and wrong. In his book, Frontline Ukraine, the academic Richard Sakwa argued that the conflict was one result of the “decay of contemporary diplomacy.” “Abusive and condemnatory rhetoric,” he noted, “took the place of rational debate.”

Ukraine, prior to the wars, was a fragile but relatively stable state, balanced precariously between Russia and the West. It was clear long before Euromaidan that these powers were engaged in a geopolitical struggle that could dangerously destabilise this historical borderland. 

Russia, clearly, is the aggressor, battling in foreign territory to secure Putin’s goals, but Western countries armed and encouraged the fight

These attitudes resulted eventually in something that today looks increasingly like a proxy war. Russia, clearly, is the aggressor, battling in foreign territory to secure Putin’s goals, but Western countries armed and encouraged the fight, while their politicians used the conflict cynically to court domestic popularity. When the Ukrainians on occasion seemed inclined to negotiate with the Kremlin, leaders like Boris Johnson intervened to try to stiffen their resolve. It’s no wonder that cynics said the West was prepared to continue the war until the “last drop of Ukrainian blood”.

Ironically, Johnson, who this week lambasted Farage for his “ahistorical” opinions, was previously described as a “Putin apologist” during the Brexit campaign, for suggesting that the EU’s conduct in Ukraine was not blameless. 

Farage’s analysis of the war’s causes was no doubt condensed and flattened for a television audience. It was based, though, not on apologising for Putin, but on a relatively pragmatic view of the context behind this conflict. 

In most of the world, it is not taken for granted that the US and its allies have a right to subvert governments they do not like and work to replace them with something more amenable. That fact should be even more obvious in countries that have deep cultural, historical and linguistic ties to Russia. 

The Russian president invaded Ukraine and deserved condemnation for that, but Western leaders allowed their geo-political rivalry in the region to fester and deteriorate, in a way that can fairly be described as provocation. At the very least, they behaved recklessly. It’s a shame that we still cannot have a serious debate about that, without resorting to cliches and insults.