But Mr Farage has doubled-down on his comments, writing an article for the Telegraph titled: 'The West's errors in Ukraine have been catastrophic. I won't apologise for telling the truth.'

In it, Mr Farage wrote: "I am not and never have been an apologist or supporter of Putin. His 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."

He added: "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.

"What I have been saying for the past 10 years is that the West has played into Putin's hands, giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway."

Mr Farage has previously faced criticism for his remarks on Putin.

In 2014, he said he "admired" Putin as an "operator."

He told GQ magazine: "As an operator, but not as a human being, I would say Putin.

"The way he played the whole Syria thing. Brilliant. Not that I approve of him politically. How many journalists in jail now?"

Mr Farage later addressed criticism of his comments in 2014, saying he had been "wildly misquoted".

He said in an LBC debate: “They’re going to have a go at me over Putin because I’ve been wildly misquoted over that.

“I was asked a couple of months ago which world leader did I admire and I said Vladimir Putin as an operator particularly the way he managed to stop the West getting militarily involved in Syria, but I don’t like him, I wouldn’t want to live there and I don’t like him as a human being. But I’m sure there will be a ding-dong over that.”