Pranksters interrupt Farage speech with banner mocking Ukraine views
- Farage has faced strong criticism over his comments on Russia and Ukraine
Nigel Farage was bamboozled by a surprise banner of Russian President Vladimir Putin descending from the ceiling at a rally in Walton, Essex this evening.
Led By Donkeys, a political campaign group critical of Farage, claimed responsibility for the act, broadcasting the full unveiling on their Twitter/X page.
Video showed the banner emblazoned with a picture of Putin and the words 'I [heart] Putin' slowly unfolding behind the Reform UK party leader as addressed his audience at the Columbine Centre, some 9 miles from Clacton-on-Sea.
While some cackled at first, others joined calls to 'rip it down' as two men struggled to pull the poster from the ceiling.
In a pithy explanation, Led By Donkeys said on Twitter/X: 'Nigel Farage says Putin is the world leader he 'admires the most' and blames the West for Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine.'
Video showed a banner slowly descending behind Farage as he spoke this evening
Some of the members of the audience laughed, before others joined chants to 'get it down'
Farage has received bipartisan criticism for his controversial comments on Russia, with Boris Johnson late last week saying he was 'parroting Putin's lies' with 'morally repugnant' claims.
In a speech shared on Twitter/X on June 24, Farage discussed comments made with the BBC's Panorama in which he said that the expansion of the EU and NATO had 'provoked' Putin into invading Ukraine.
'George Robertson, the former Secretary General of Nato, said a few months ago that the EU's accession agreement to Ukraine was a mistake that was used by Putin,' he claimed.
Lord Robertson, who headed Nato from 1999 to 2003, accused Mr Farage of talking 'total nonsense'.
Russia occupied and annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014.
In an article for the Sunday Telegraph, Mr Farage also wrote: 'His [Putin's] invasion of Ukraine was immoral, outrageous and indefensible.
'As a champion of national sovereignty, I believe that Putin was entirely wrong to invade the sovereign nation of Ukraine. Nobody can fairly accuse me of being an appeaser. I have never sought to justify Putin's invasion in any way and I'm not now.
'But that doesn't change the fact that I saw it coming a decade ago, warned that it was coming and am one of the few political figures who has been consistently right and honest about Russia's Ukraine war. If you poke the Russian bear with a stick, don't be surprised if he responds.'
Sharing the article on X, Mr Johnson wrote: 'This is nauseating ahistorical drivel and more Kremlin propaganda. Nobody provoked Putin. Nobody 'poked the bear with a stick'.
'The people of Ukraine voted overwhelmingly in 1991 to be a sovereign and independent country. They were perfectly entitled to seek both Nato and EU membership.'
Russian state TV – rigidly controlled by the dictator – jumped on Farage's comments and boasted that he was 'complimentary' to Russia and had revealed 'who really provoked the conflict'.
Asked if the Kremlin considered the Clacton-on-Sea candidate 'an ally', Maria Zakharova suggested it did, saying: 'How [else do] you see the person who tells people that two plus two is four or reminds you of the exact time?'
Assistants struggled to pull the banner down from the ceiling and walked off stage
Farage was speaking in Walton, Essex this evening as Britain prepares to go to the polls
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