Farage hits back after Boris Johnson called him 'morally repugnant' over Ukraine war comments

Nigel Farage denies he was a Putin apologist, ITV News Correspondent Harry Horton reports.

Nigel Farage has hit back after Boris Johnson called him "morally repugnant" in response to comments he made about Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

The Reform UK leader sparked controversy after he said in multiple media interviews that the West gave Russian President Vladimir Putin a reason to invade Ukraine.

Speaking at a rally in Maidstone, Farage said Johnson was the "worst prime minister of modern times", and insisted "I would never, ever defend Putin."

Unveiling a giant copy of a newspaper front page with the headline "Boris blames the EU for war in Ukraine", Farage said - "well, perhaps it's Boris Johnson that's morally repugnant, and not me."

In an interview for ITV's Tonight programme, Farage said the West had "provoked Putin stupidly", calling for peace negotiations between Russia and Ukraine.

Prior to that, on Friday Farage told the BBC’s The Panorama Interviews programme that “we provoked this war”, in reference to countries in eastern Europe signing up to Nato and the European Union, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The comments triggered a whole wave of condemnation from various political leaders, including former PM Boris Johnson, who wrote on X that Farage's comments amounted to "Kremlin propaganda."

Johnson said: "To try and spread the blame is morally repugnant and parroting Putin's lies.

"The problem in the last 30 years has not been Western provocation but Western weakness in the face of Russian aggression."

Johnson was responding specifically to an opinion piece in the Telegraph by Farage in which he doubled down on his position, saying "if you poke the Russian bear with a stick, don’t be surprised if he responds."

In Kent on Monday, Farage said he had been “more far-sighted” in predicting a war in Ukraine, telling the crowd: “This has been turned into ‘Farage makes outrageous statement’, ‘Farage defends Putin’ – well, I’ve done none of those things.

“I would never, ever defend Putin and I think his behaviour in Ukraine and elsewhere has been reprehensible.

“But if we’re going to think towards a peace at some time in the not too distant future, perhaps it might be helpful to understand what went wrong in the first place.”

He added: “This man will go down as the worst prime minister of modern times. A man who betrayed an 80-seat majority. Who opened the door to mass immigration? Boris Johnson. Who betrayed the will of Brexit voters? It was Boris Johnson. He pretended to be a Conservative but he governed as a Green.”

The Reform UK leader went on: “There’s been precious little debate on defence, precious little debate about the state of our armed forces, precious little debate about how little we still do in this country for our veterans, and precious, precious almost no debate on foreign policy.”

He added: “I have no doubt that the world is in a more dangerous place right now than it’s been at any point since the Cuban missile crisis over 60 years ago.

“A couple of years back we would have thought war on a global scale was inconceivable, but we now all, don’t we, harbour that doubt and that worry at the back of our minds?”

In a speech launching the Scottish Tories' manifesto, Sunak said Farage's comments "play into Putin's hands", declaring "that kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain's security."

Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, and since then hundreds of thousands of Ukrainian and Russian troops have been killed, along with civilians.

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