Nigel Farage: Letting Ukraine use long-range missiles is dangerous escalation

LONDON — Nigel Farage questioned whether the U.K. should allow Ukraine to fire long-range missiles deep inside of Russia for fear of further escalating the war.

Speaking on radio station LBC, the Reform UK leader — who has faced criticism from political rivals in the U.K. for his views on Russia’s invasion — said permitting the move could take western support beyond “just the defense of Ukraine.”

“Should we support Ukraine? Yes. Do we want our long range missiles to be firing deep inside Russia? I am worried that that is a level of dangerous escalation,” he said.

The U.K. and U.S. are yet to decide whether British-supplied Storm Shadow missiles can be used against targets on Russian soil. The missiles are partially reliant on U.S. technology making American approval key. Next week’s U.N. General Assembly is being closely watched for further movement.

Farage has previously previously argued that the “ever eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union” provoked Russian President Vladimir Putin to invade Ukraine in 2022. That drew heated criticism from former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who dismissed it as “nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda.”

Speaking to LBC Thursday, Farage said Putin headed up a “very, very unpleasant, dangerous regime” and said the West shouldn’t “bow down to threats that are made to us by Putin.”

But he added: “I’m deeply worried about the growing hawkishness that I hear on both sides of the pond. I think we should all be very thoughtful and very concerned.”

Farage also took aim at Johnson’s recent call in the Spectator magazine for Ukraine to join NATO. He labeled Johnson, who has lobbied top Republicans in the U.S. to stick with the Ukrainian cause, a part of the “hawkish fringe.” Johnson and five former defense secretaries this weekend called on the U.K. to let Ukraine use the long-range missiles even without U.S. approval.

“We had the hawks over Iraq,” Farage said. “We had the hawks over Afghanistan. Where did that get us?”