Nigel Farage’s claim that NATO provoked Russia is naive and dangerous

On June 21st Nigel Farage acknowledged that the war in Ukraine was the fault of Vladimir Putin, but told the BBC that Russia’s president had been “provoked” by NATO and the European Union. The leader of Reform UK, the populist party snapping at the heels of the governing Conservatives in pre-election polling and threatening to push them into third place, was echoing Mr Putin’s own arguments. The Russian leader is focused mostly on NATO, which provides the hard security that makes the EU safe. He complains that the alliance’s expansion into central and eastern Europe after the cold war made Russia’s position intolerable. Some Western scholars concur.