A leading Brexiteer has sparked a backlash after blaming the European Union for the Ukraine crisis – and seeming to excuse Russian aggression.
Arron Banks, a British businessman who co-founded the Leave.EU campaign who was one of UKIP’s biggest donors, claimed the EU “stoked the fire burning in Eastern Ukraine on the Russia borders by pushing for membership and NATO expansion”.
He added: “Russia shouldn’t invade anyone but Ukraine isn’t a single unified country, in the same way Spain has its Basque problem.”
Banks used a map from Wikipedia to back up his claims, titled “languages spoken at home in Ukraine” according to 2009 polling.
The map shows the majority of Ukraine speaks Ukrainian, but that the eastern part of the country overwhelmingly speaks Russian, accounting for the highest proportion of Russian spoken in Ukraine.
The map also shows other languages spoken in Ukraine, such as Romanian.
Reactions
Writer and political commentator Adam Schwarz told Banks: “I was going to disagree with you, but now see that you’ve based your research on a Wikipedia article so you must be an expert on the subject.”
Journalist Otto English suggested disagreement with Banks that the EU is to blame for the conflict, saying the bloc has been “extending the hand of friendship”.
“Just think, for anyone who voted Brexit, this guy is on their team,” one Twitter user said.
Another added: “Wait until he sees a map of languages spoken in London…”
“Bet Arron Banks thinks Scotland should remain shackled to this Union though, doesn’t he?”, a third asked.
One person said they “didn’t realise” Banks was an expert on international affairs. “Still, he does concede that countries shouldn’t invade one another so there’s some hope for him.”
Nigel Farage, former leader of UKIP and Brexit Party
Meanwhile, reactions poured in after a video of Nigel Farage defending Russia’s actions last week resurfaced.
It comes as Russia has sent in what it says are peacekeeping troops in Ukraine, after weeks of tensions that it would invade the country following the deployment of tens of thousands of troops at the border.
But Farage warned in an interview with GB News last week that Russia president Vladimir Putin’s demand that Ukraine does not join the western military alliance NATO should be met – rather than allow the group to expand even further east, right next to Russia.
He said: “I thought for 30 years that the NATO policy, the EU policy of expanding ever eastwards was a huge strategic error.
“And if Vladimir Putin’s one demand is that we state clearly that the Ukraine is not going to join NATO, why don’t we do it?
“Well, some of you may say, isn’t that appeasement, isn’t that giving in? But ask yourself a different question. What possible strategic benefit or asset could it be to us for the Ukraine to join Nato? Absolutely none whatsoever that I can see.”
Related: Russia-Ukraine: ‘This is a moment of extreme danger for the world’, Boris warns