Rishi Sunak says Nigel Farage ‘playing into hands of Putin’ with ‘completely wrong’ comments on Ukraine war
Rishi Sunak has said Nigel Farage’s comments about the West provoking Vladimir Putin were “completely wrong” and play into the Russian dictator’s hands.
The Reform UK leader is facing a backlash from across the political spectrum for saying that the expansion of NATO and the EU “provoked” Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
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Mr Sunak told reporters: “What he said was completely wrong and only plays into Putin’s hands.
“This is a man who deployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain, is doing deals with countries like North Korea
“And this kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security, the security of our allies that rely on us and only emboldens Putin further.”
In an interview with BBC Panorama, Mr Farage said he had been warning since the fall of the Berlin Wall that there would be a war in Ukraine due to the “ever-eastward expansion of NATO and the European Union”.
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Farage: NATO expansion ‘provoked’ Ukraine war
He said this was giving Mr Putin a reason to tell the Russian people “they’re coming for us again” and go to war.
The Reform leader confirmed his belief the West “provoked” the conflict – but said it was “of course” the Russian president’s “fault”.
Asked about comments he made in 2014 stating that Mr Putin was the statesman he most admired, Mr Farage said: “I said I disliked him as a person, but I admired him as a political operator because he’s managed to take control of running Russia.”
Mr Putin has served continuously as either Russian president or prime minister since 1999, with elections which have been described as “rigged”.
Mr Sunak is the latest Conservative figure to condemn the comments, after Home Secretary James Cleverly said Mr Farage was “echoing Putin’s vile justification for the brutal invasion of Ukraine”.
Meanwhile, former defence secretary Ben Wallace branded the Reform UK leader a “pub bore…who often says if ‘I was running the country’ and presents very simplistic answers to actually I am afraid in the 21st century complex problems”.
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Farage called out over comments
Mr Farage has so far enjoyed a relatively smooth campaign, with his party’s popularity increasing and even overtaking the Conservatives in some polls.
Senior Tories, some of whom want Mr Farage to join them to counter the threat of Reform UK, have until now refrained from the sort of personal attacks they have launched at Sir Keir Starmer.
The most that cabinet ministers have said against him up to now is that a vote for him is a vote to put Labour in Downing Street with a “super-majority”.
Labour leader Sir Keir condemned Mr Farage’s remarks, calling them “disgraceful”.
“I’ve always been clear that Putin bears responsibility, sole responsibility for the Russian aggression in Ukraine”, he said.
“Anybody who wants to stand to be a representative in our parliament should be really clear that whether it’s Russian aggression on the battlefield or online, that we stand against that aggression.”
Lib Dem Leader Ed Davey said: “It is Putin and Russia who are to blame for this, no one else.”
He added: “I don’t share any values with Nigel Farage.”
Following the backlash, Mr Farage posted a late-night tweet appearing to clarify his comments.
The former Brexit Party leader wrote: “I am one of the few figures that have been consistent & honest about the war with Russia. Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation, and the EU was wrong to expand eastward.
“The sooner we realise this, the closer we will be to ending the war and delivering peace.”
A group of investors has filed a class-action lawsuit against decentralized cryptocurrency exchange Meteora, alleging the firm was involved in manipulating the launch and market price of the M3M3 token.
In an amended complaint filed on April 21 in the US District Court for the Southern District of New York, the plaintiffs allege that venture capital firm Kelsier Labs, Meteora, and four current or former executives “intentionally misrepresented” information in the M3M3 launch in December 2024.
The investors claimed that they suffered at least $69 million in losses between December 2024 and February 2025 after the parties presented “trusted leaders in the Solana ecosystem” as being behind the token launch, rather than a “blatant fraud” in which sales were manipulated to artificially inflate the price.
“This artificially-inflated valuation communicated highly misleading information to non-insider investors, who reasonably relied on Defendants’ representations that the $M3M3 launch was fully accessible to the public and conducted in a transparent manner fair to non-insider investors, and thus reasonably relied on $M3M3 market price as a meaningful measure of its value,” the complaint reads. “The post-launch price spike also served to corroborate Defendants’ aggressively-marketed, but misleading, assertions that $M3M3 had intrinsic value and a comparatively low risk profile.”
The lawsuit is one of many involving different crypto firms that have alleged fraud through violations of US securities laws. Though the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), under acting chair Mark Uyeda since US President Donald Trump took office, has scaled back or dismissed many enforcement actions involving digital assets, the agency said in February it still intended to pursue cases against fraudulent token projects.
The investors added:
“Together, Defendants designed the $M3M3 Token and planned its launch on Meteora in a manner intended to illicitly enrich themselves at the expense of the unsuspecting investing public.”
Related: Meteora says co-founder’s X account hacked after ‘parasitic’ memecoin post
Memecoins in the Solana ecosystem
Meteora has been tied to the launch of several high-profile yet controversial tokens, including those for Trump (TRUMP), his wife Melania (MELANIA), Libra (LIBRA), and online influencer Haliey Welch (HAWK).
According to the lawsuit, the firm “purported to offer a comprehensive solution to the problems in the memecoin investment market” with the launch of M3M3. The defendants in the case allegedly attempted to distinguish the token from other notable memecoins by highlighting the “legitimacy and trustworthiness” through the involvement of Meteora co-founder Ben Chow and the platform.
Kelsier Ventures, KIP Protocol, and Meteora face a similar class-action lawsuit filed in New York in March over LIBRA allegedly being launched in a “deceptive, manipulative and fundamentally unfair” manner. Argentine President Javier Milei briefly promoted the token over social media after his sister reportedly received payments from the project.
Magazine: Memecoin degeneracy is funding groundbreaking anti-aging research
More than 70 cryptocurrency exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are slated for review by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) this year. According to Bloomberg analyst Eric Balchunas, the list includes proposed ETFs holding a range of assets, from altcoins to memecoins to derivatives instruments.
“Everything from XRP, Litecoin and Solana to Penguins, Doge and 2x Melania and everything in between,” Balchunas said in an April 21 post on the X platform. “Gonna be a wild year.”
Related: ARK adds staked Solana to two tech ETFs
Uncertain institutional demand
The planned funds listings come as institutional investors turn increasingly bullish on crypto as an asset class.
Upward of 80% of institutions say they plan to increase allocations to crypto in 2025, according to a March report by Coinbase and EY-Parthenon.
However, analysts caution that just because ETFs are approved for US listings doesn’t guarantee widespread adoption, especially for funds holding more obscure alternative cryptocurrencies.
“Having your coin get ETF-ized is like being in a band and getting your songs added to all the music streaming services,” Balchunas said.
“Doesn’t guarantee listens but it puts your music where the vast majority of the listeners are.”
Sygnum Bank’s research head, Katalin Tischhauser, told Cointelegraph she expects altcoin ETFs to see cumulative inflows of several hundred million to $1 billion, far less than spot Bitcoin funds.
Funds holding Bitcoin (BTC) — the first spot cryptocurrency approved for listing in a US ETF wrapper — attracted upward of $100 billion in net assets last year.
However, ETFs using options and other derivatives to provide structured exposure to cryptocurrencies such as Bitcoin and Ether might see more institutional uptake, analysts said.
Options on spot cryptocurrencies unlock numerous potential portfolio strategies for investors and could potentially catalyze “explosive” price upside for digital assets such as Bitcoin, Jeff Park, Bitwise Invest’s head of alpha strategies, said in September.
Options are contracts granting the right to buy or sell an underlying asset at a certain price.
On April 21, ARK Invest added exposure to staked Solana (SOL) to two of its existing ETFs. The asset manager said it marks the first time spot SOL has been available to US investors in an ETF.
Magazine: ‘Bitcoin layer 2s’ aren’t really L2s at all: Here’s why that matters
New filings from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) reveal that several cryptocurrency firms and their executives made significant contributions to US President Donald Trump’s inauguration fund after the results of the 2024 election.
According to FEC filings made public on April 20 by the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee, Uniswap CEO Hayden Adams donated more than $245,000, Solana Labs donated $1 million, and software firm Consensys sent $100,000 in January 2025 to support the then-president-elect’s inauguration. Many major crypto firms had previously announced their support of Trump through donations to the inaugural fund, including Coinbase, Ripple Labs, Kraken, Ondo Finance, and Robinhood.
Altogether, the fund reported more than $239 million in net donations between Nov. 15 and April 20 from companies and individuals. These included $1 million from McDonald’s, $1 million from Meta, $1 million from Apple CEO Tim Cook, $1 million from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, and various contributions from Delta Air Lines, ExxonMobil, FedEx, Nvidia, PayPal, Target, and Coca-Cola.
Since Trump took office on Jan. 20 and appointed Mark Uyeda as acting chair of the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), the agency has dropped multiple investigations and enforcement actions against crypto firms, including those that donated to the president’s 2024 campaign or inauguration fund. In February, Uniswap reported that the SEC had dropped its probe into the firm, and Consensys founder Joseph Lubin said the agency had agreed to end a separate lawsuit.
Memecoins, stablecoin issuers, and future elections
Trump’s memecoin, launched on Jan. 17 on the Solana blockchain — along with his wife Melania’s, which was available a few days later — has many in the crypto industry and the US government questioning the president about conflicts of interest by capitalizing on his position. The president’s family is also behind the launch of World Liberty Financial, a crypto firm responsible for a US dollar-pegged stablecoin at a time when lawmakers are considering legislation to regulate the technology.
In addition to the Consensys case, the SEC said it intended to drop enforcement actions or investigations into Ripple, Kraken, Robinhood and Coinbase. The three firms donated a combined $9 million to the inauguration fund.
Related: Trump’s next crypto play will be Monopoly-style game — Report
The 2024 US election cycle saw crypto-backed political action committees (PACs) spending more than $131 million to influence races in crucial congressional districts. The Fairshake PAC has already said it had more than $100 million available, in part from contributions from Coinbase and Ripple, to spend on the 2026 midterms.
Magazine: Trump’s crypto ventures raise conflict of interest, insider trading questions
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