Ukraine is in peril. Volodymyr Zelensky, the most courageous leader in the modern world, faces probably the darkest winter yet of his five-year war to stop the Russians conquering his country. Running short of vital Patriot missiles, it’s hard to repel the daily barrage of drones and missiles unleashed on Ukraine by Vladimir Putin.
Day by day the horrors continue. In the Kharkiv region on Monday three children, including a one-year-old girl, were killed in a village park by a Russian drone, along with three adults. Yet on Wednesday Donald Trump again suggested the war was all Ukraine’s fault, and that the onus is on them to settle it. “Russia frankly has been fine on Ukraine,” was Trump’s mad assertion this week. “They haven’t been doing much.”
What disgusting remarks from a supposed ally when the Putin regime hasn’t just killed tens of thousands of Ukrainian civilians (as well as tens of thousands of its own troops) but has abducted more than 20,000 children from their Ukrainian parents and taken them back to Russia, maybe never to be seen again by their real families.
Trump seems determined to betray Zelensky, to betray Ukraine, to betray Europe and Western liberal and democratic values, and instead give a large chunk of Europe to Putin’s murderous.
Last week, the Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, a former Trump ally, showed such integrity and bravery when she told the US President to stop giving “legitimacy to Moscow while its bombs continue to fall on Ukrainian cities”. Meloni told the Italian parliament: “No one will convince me that the surrender of those defending their freedom can be called peace.”
On Capitol Hill, Republican lawmakers who were once terrified of Trump are increasingly speaking out as the President’s ratings fall. Don Bacon, a retiring Republican Representative from Nebraska, said it was “disgraceful” that Trump was “cosying up” to a war criminal.
Now it’s time for another old friend of Trump’s to swap allegiances and pluck up the courage and condemn the President outright. No British politician is closer to Trump than Nigel Farage, the Reform UK leader.
Farage campaigned for Trump in the last three presidential elections and notably came to his defence at a low moment when Trump fell badly behind in the 2016 race over his grotesque “grab ’em by the pussy” remarks. Farage then became the first foreign politician to meet Trump after his first victory in 2016. They’ve met and spoken regularly over the years, with Farage visiting Trump at the White House, at his home Mar-a-Lago in Florida and when Trump visited Britain. Trump bewitches Farage in the same way Farage dazzles many of his sycophantic followers. And Farage and his colleagues have clearly adopted many of the hard-nosed practices of Trump and his White House.
Trump is even more unpopular in Britain than he is in America right now. Many British voters fear a Farage government would be in thrall to the Trump White House (or a Maga presidential successor like JD Vance). If Farage were to break dramatically and publicly with Trump over his appalling treatment of Ukraine and Zelensky, it would help revive Reform’s fortunes with an electorate that increasingly worries that a Farage government would kowtow to Trump and adopt many of the same ruthless and authoritarian Trumpian techniques.
Farage hasn’t always backed Trump 100 per cent. In 2025 he tried to refute Trump’s assertion that Zelensky was a dictator, and said Russia appeared to be getting too much from US peace proposals. But Farage has been far too equivocal on Ukraine. He’s called it “one of the most corrupt countries on Earth”, and says a Reform government would take a “keen look” at British support for Ukraine. In 2024 he argued that the West had “provoked this war”. Such statements can only have given reassurance to the Kremlin, and to Putin, whose leadership style Farage has admired in the past.
Historians will look back on the Russia-Ukraine war by asking who showed wholehearted support for Zelensky and his government in their moments of greatest need. In Britain that includes successive prime ministers Boris Johnson, Rishi Sunak, Keir Starmer and now Andy Burnham.
Who stood up for Ukraine, Europe and the free world against the Russian threat will be remembered. Sometimes betrayal can occur by saying nothing, by being too cowardly to do what was right. Or to stand by friends even when they’re wrong and making horrendous mistakes. The time has come for Farage to make that break – to defend democracy, liberty and free speech, against dictatorship and mass murder.
It takes courage in public life to break with a long-standing friend, especially to denounce him very publicly. But it’s also cowardly not to do so. Farage would win the respect of many British people – and overseas – if he declared 100 per cent support for Ukraine, and 100 per cent against Russia. No ifs or buts. It might even revive his ailing leadership.