Nigel Farage has claimed the West “provoked” Russia into its deadly invasion of Ukraine two years ago.
The Reform UK leader said the European Union’s expansion as well as Nato had provided Vladimir Putin with an “excuse”.
His incendiary comments came in a high-profile television interview less than two weeks before voters go to the polls.
They are likely to prompt an angry backlash from politicians across the spectrum, who have supported Ukraine as it attempts to fight off the Russians.
In the head-to-head with the BBC’s Nick Robinson, the former Ukip leader was challenged over his previous comments that he “admired” Putin.
Of the war in Ukraine, Mr Farage said: “We provoked this war”.
He added: “Of course, it’s his fault, he’s used what we’ve done as an excuse”.
But asked “We provoked the invasion of Ukraine?”, he replied: “yes”.
He added: “Very interestingly, once again, 10 years ago when I predicted this – by the way, I’m the only person in British politics that predicted what would happen, and of course everyone said I was a pariah for daring to suggest it.”
He added: “I stood up in the European Parliament in 2014 and I said, and I quote, ‘there will be a war in Ukraine’. Why did I say that? it was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason to (go to) his Russian people to say ‘they’re coming for us again’, and to go to war.”
Mr Farage pulled out of the same BBC interview last week as his Reform UK party faced a row over whether the UK should have appeased Hitler.
The Panorama special was set to have been broadcast on Tuesday night, but it was pulled from the schedules and postponed, despite Mr Farage continuing to campaign in Barnsley and Nottinghamshire.
The move came after it emerged one of his candidates claimed the country would have been “far better” off if it had “taken Hitler up on his offer of neutrality” instead of fighting the Nazis.
Ian Gribbin, who is standing in Bexhill and Battle, also described Winston Churchill as “abysmal” and praised Mr Putin.
New figures show Reform UK raised £742,000 in the second week of the campaign, largely thanks to a £500,000 donation from Britain Means Business Ltd, a company controlled by party chairman Richard Tice.
The party also received £50,000 from former pop star and Neighbours actor Holly Valance, who hosted a fundraising event for former US president Donald Trump in London recently.
The figure dwarfed the £292,500 raised by the Conservatives between June 6 and 12.
