Nigel Farage has been a close ally of President Trump (Image: Getty)
Reform leader Nigel Farage broke ranks with his friend Donald Trump as he insisted Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy is “not a dictator”.
Speaking in Washington, also disagreed with Mr Trump’s claim that was to blame for the war. Mr Farage said: ” is to blame for the invasion. Of that there is no doubt.”
Mr Farage said “geo-political mistakes” had been made in the run-up to the war that began three years ago. But he stated bluntly: “It’s Putin that invaded. It’s him that’s behaved badly.”
The Reform leader, who has been a close political ally of the US President, also defended Mr Trump saying he was right to attempt to end the war. And he insisted Mr Trump remained committed to the NATO military alliance.
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But his comments in an interview with GB News clearly placed him at odds with Mr Trump, who has called Mr Zelensky “a dictator without elections” because an election planned for 2024 was postponed as a result of the ongoing war. The US President also accused of starting the war, telling Mr Zelensky: “You should have never started it”.
Mr Farage said: “Let’s be clear. Zelensky is not a dictator. But it’s only right and proper that Ukrainians have a timeline for elections.
“So no, he ‘s not a dictator but there needs to be a timeline so the Ukrainian people can vote on a peace deal.”
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Critics of Mr Trump have said that the UK also postponed elections during the Second World War, and there was no poll between 1935 and 1945. Mr Farage pointed out that the 1945 election took place after the surrender of Germany but before the defeat of Japan, when the war was still underway.
He continued: “I’m not suggesting has an election tomorrow. But once we’ve seen the shape of the peace deal then of course there should be an election.”
In an apparent attempt to defend Mr Trump’s bizarre behaviour Mr Farage said: “You should always take everything says seriously, you shouldn’t always take everything says absolutely literally.”
Mr Farage also said he hoped European leaders would start to step up spending on defence rather than expecting the US to shoulder the burden.
He said: “They will be our best and our strongest friends and our greatest protectors” but European countries have to fulfill our end of the bargain.
The US does not want to “walk away” from NATO, he said. But he said a European army without the US would be “pathetically weak”.