Is Nigel Farage a Putin apologist?

In brief…

• Farage first told the BBC he blames NATO expansion for the war in Ukraine, drawing criticism from across the political spectrum
• Instead of retracting the claim, Farage has continued to push out this argument in other articles and interviews
• He has raced to object to the “Putin apologist” label, but still doubles down on his stance

It may have seemed like Nigel Farage, the straight-talking populist darling of the UK’s right-wing, could hardly put a foot wrong with his own fans.

But when the Reform UK leader blamed NATO expansion for Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in a bombshell BBC interview, the tide began to turn.

Now, he has been lambasted by his own supporters - The Daily Mail and others - for being a so-called “Putin apologist”.

Farage has poured cold water on this claim, saying that he is neither an “apologist or supporter” of Putin. 

But what do the News Agents think?

Emily Maitlis says: “He [Nigel Farage] has often been seen as something of a Putin apologist, a man who has repeatedly appeared on Russia Today the state TV station, a man who didn’t seem to call Putin out as a war monger that most of this country think he is.”

This left Farage in this slightly odd place, which is “trying to sell himself as this national figure”.

That is, the man who supports D-Day, the man who supports veterans, the man who supports our boys overseas. But yet has found himself on the wrong side of the Russian dictator, says Maitlis.

Lewis Goodall points out that Farage’s comments are nothing new and that in fact he has made similar claims many times before.

But for Goodall, the interesting part about all this is that instead of playing it down and moving on, Farage and his team have decided to double down.

How did Farage double down?

“Don’t blame me for telling the truth about Putin’s war in Ukraine”, Farage wrote in a piece in The Daily Telegraph

He added: “I am not and never have been an apologist or supporter of Putin. His invasion of Ukraine was immoral, outrageous and indefensible.”

But Farage goes on to write that it doesn’t “change the fact that I saw it coming”.

The Daily Mail later published a story suggesting that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's office made comments about Farage having been “infected by the virus of Putinism”.

This is what infuriates Farage and his team, says Goodall.

They accused the Mail of “election interference” by linking the comments made by Zelensky’s office to Farage.

That’s because Farage and his team say the comments from the Ukrainian president’s office were from an unnamed source and had nothing to do with the Reform UK leader.

“It’s all slightly nuts”, says Jon Sopel.

Particularly the “thin-skinned nature of Nigel Farage when facing criticism”, the News Agent adds.

He says: “I think there has been a fundamental miscalculation on Farage’s part which is to do the Trumpain thing - to double down and say election interference.”

Sopel notes that at the closest, we are 3,000 miles nearer to Ukraine than the eastern seaboard than the US.

He adds: “It seemed much more real, much more real that there was an invasion taking place that was unprovoked.

“The fact of the matter is that when those countries came out of totalitarian rule at the end of the Soviet Union, it wasn’t expansionism where the EU wanted to take them over.

“Those countries wanted to join the EU to have a bulwark of democracy, the rule of the law and free elections like we have in the West.”

Listen to the latest episode of The News Agents podcast now.