Sergey Radchenko

What Nigel Farage gets wrong about the Ukraine war

Nigel Farage (Photo: Getty)

‘We [the West] provoked this war [in Ukraine],’ Nigel Farage recently declared on BBC Panorama, blaming Putin’s invasion of the neighboring country on the ‘ever eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union’. He later doubled down on his claims, arguing that Putin’s behavior in Ukraine was ‘reprehensible, but…’

Farage of course is not alone in explaining Putin’s invasion of Ukraine by blaming Nato and the EU. For a start, Putin himself has done so repeatedly. Putin and Farage clearly see eye-to-eye on this point. But Farage’s views are also aligned closely with those of several academics, best represented by John Mearsheimer whose famous article – ‘Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West’s Fault: The Liberal Delusions That Provoked Putin’ – was first published ten years ago, and has since become a point of reference for all those who seek to ‘explain’ Putin, not ‘justify’ him. 

The problem with this reading is that it robs the offending party – Putin – of agency.

Written by
Sergey Radchenko
Sergey Radchenkois the Wilson E. Schmidt Distinguished Professor at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. He is the author of the newly published To Run the World: the Kremlin’s Cold War Bid for Global Power (Cambridge University Press, 2024).

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