Farage: "I Respect Russia But We Need Their Spies Off Our Streets"

Nigel Farage says he is pro-Russia when it comes to the Ukraine but we need to get its spies off our streets to avoid more bloodshed.

"I'm not pro-Putin, I'm pro the sensitivities of Russia about [the EU's] eastward expansion," the UKIP leader said in his LBC phone in on Nick Ferrari's show.

"The EU wants to give Ukrainians visa free access and ultimately for it to become a full member of the European Union. The Russians see that as a threat."

"That's lead to a serious deterioration of relations. I suspect that even if Putin wasn't in charge of Russia, any Russian leader would have been worried by the EU's expansion to the east."

But he said that these sympathies do not extend to the murder of Alexander Litvinenko, after a ruling that the Russian state 'probably' played a role in his death by polonium poisoning.

"Its pretty clear that we have had thuggery and murders on London's streets and country houses in Surrey and all sorts of extraordinary things have happened,"

"The sheer number of people who have been critical of mr putin, journalists, indeed former business partners with whom he has fallen out with, something like a hundred people have been murdered in strange circumstances."

"So, do I approve of the Litvinenko, yeah I do actually, I think it was very frank and really honest, and do I think in diplomatic terms we should try to get some of the Russian spies out of London."

"I don't want to go to war with Mr Putin our priority should be to make London's streets safe and not to have Russian style gangland warfare."