REVEALED: How one of Nigel Farage’s most prominent supporters has repeatedly called for closer ties with the Kremlin

One of Nigel Farage’s most prominent supporters has repeatedly called for closer ties with the Kremlin, The Mail on Sunday has revealed.

Jonathan Mappin – who hosted a reform rally this weekend where candidates ‘all applauded Farage’s controversial comments on the West’s culpability for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine – has said that ‘being friends with Putin is very smart. We love him’.

Mappin, 59, heir to the Mappin and Webb jewelry family and a practicing Scientologist, previously employed Farage on the advisory board of his company, Dutch Green Business.

He owns the three-star Camelot Castle hotel in Tintagel, Cornwall, where Friday’s Reform meeting took place. He told this newspaper that the room full of candidates “all cheered” when they heard Farage’s controversial comments.

After Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Mappin said it was a “gift for the freedom of the world” and that he supports the “Russian Bear.”

And last June, Mappin and his wife Irina attended a private event hosted by Andrey Kelin, Russia’s ambassador to London, at his home in Kensington, later saying “we received an extremely warm welcome.”

Jonathan Mappin, 59, hosted a reform meeting this weekend and said: ‘Being friends with Putin is very smart. We love him’.

Last night, Mappin told the MoS: “I said what I said on the issue to help this country. I’m not paid by Reform or Farage, I’m just a friend, and I’m an independent thinker.’

Outrage over Nigel Farage’s claim that the West was responsible for Russia’s invasion of Ukraine intensified last night when President Zelensky accused him of being infected with the ‘virus of Putinism’.

The extraordinary intervention reinforces growing opposition to the reform leader’s claim that EU and NATO expansion had given Vladimir Putin a reason to justify war.

He has also branded Volodymyr Zelensky “murderous” and said the Ukrainian leader “forced every NATO citizen… to finance his Nazi operations.”

This newspaper has also compiled a damning dossier of 22 reform candidates who have expressed sympathy for Putin and his invasion, or endorsed false claims that align with Moscow’s propaganda machine.

After being condemned by Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer, Farage compared the row over his comments – made during an interview with the BBC – to the ‘Russian hoax’ – the term used by former US President Donald Trump to debunk claims. to point out that he had conspired with Moscow. . Speaking to supporters in Clacton, Essex, where he is standing, Farage said: “We are back to the Russian hoax, just as we have been year after year in America.”

Although there has been no official response from Kiev, a source from President Zelensky’s office told the BBC: “The virus of Putinism is unfortunately infecting people.”

Farage’s controversial comments were condemned by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak. Pictured: Mr Sunak shakes hands with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky during a visit to the presidential palace in Kiev, Ukraine, to announce a major new package of £2.5 billion in military aid to the country for the coming year, on January 12, 2024

In other election developments:

• Former immigration secretary Robert Jenrick today uses a Mail on Sunday article to effectively launch a bid to succeed Rishi Sunak, calling on the Tories to tackle the threat of reform by tackling ‘unsustainable’ immigration and Boris Johnson to bring back – but said Farage has no place in party;

• Farage told the MoS he would be willing to join forces with Jenrick and former Home Secretary Priti Patel – but not Boris unless he apologized for mass immigration and net zero;

• Sue Gray, Starmer’s chief of staff, is said to be planning to maintain control of Labour’s ‘supermajority’ of MPs by closing bars in the House of Commons;

• There have been fears that Labour’s ‘hidden tax rises’ could lead to a 1970s-style ‘brain drain’, amid claims that wealthy executives are already leaving the UK.

In his BBC interview with Nick Robinson, Farage also spoke of his “admiration” for Putin as a “political operator” but insisted he hated the Russian leader as a person.

The Reform leader sent a video message to the Cornwall event apologizing for his absence.

The MoS dossier of reform candidates who have expressed sympathy for Putin also includes Andrew Husband, who stands in North Durham and has branded President Zelenskiy as ‘evil and corrupt’ and ‘a dictator’. He has also falsely claimed that Ukraine is “the child trafficking capital of Europe” and that the country has committed a “genocide” against Russian speakers for eight years. In another post, he shared false claims that Alexei Navalny, the late Russian opposition leader and Putin’s fiercest critic, died due to a blood clot caused by the Covid vaccine.

Standing in Queen’s Park and Maida Vale, Angela Carter-Begbie has said: ‘Putin wants peace – it’s the West that doesn’t’, that ‘Ukraine was terrible at first against the Russians’ and that ‘Putin is putting his people on the first place’. .

John Clark, standing in Bangor Aberconwy, described Putin as ‘sane and reasonable’. He has also said that supporting Ukraine is ‘not in Britain’s interests’ and responded to Lord Cameron’s support for Ukraine by saying: ‘You are stripping our country of assets to pay for the expansion of their empire by your globalist friends.”

Hamish Haddow wrongly claimed in Chipping Barnet that Boris Johnson had ‘halted the peace talks in Ukraine on demand’. [Joe] Biden” and said “every Ukrainian dead [is] firmly on Boris’.

Chichester’s Teresa DeSantis said Boris was ‘acting like Zelensky’s rent boy, pushing for war’, while Jack Aaron in Welwyn Hatfield called Putin’s use of force in Ukraine ‘legitimate’ and compared him to Churchill. Malcolm Cupis, in Melksham and Devizes, compared the call for Ukrainian refugees in Britain to be exempt from car registration fees to ‘ethnic cleansing’. Peter Morris in Melton and Syston claimed the war was about ‘the US defense budget’, while Jack Brookes in Birmingham Erdington claimed Boris was ‘keeping the war going’.

In a statement clarifying his position, Farage said: ‘Putin was wrong to invade a sovereign nation and the EU was wrong to expand eastward.’

And in today’s Sunday Telegraph he said he would not apologize for ‘telling the truth’ and that he had been the victim of an ‘insult’ by the ‘political establishment’.

He wrote: “I am not and never have been an apologist or supporter of Putin. His invasion of Ukraine was immoral, outrageous and indefensible. I have never tried to justify Putin’s invasion in any way. But that doesn’t change the fact that I saw it coming ten years ago. What I have been saying over the past decade is that the West has played into Putin’s hands by giving him the excuse to do what he wanted to do anyway.’

Home Secretary James Cleverly said Farage’s comments “reflect Putin’s despicable justification”, while Sunak said: “What he said was completely wrong and only plays into Putin’s hands.”

Former Defense Secretary Ben Wallace compared Farage to the “pub owner… who often says ‘if I were running the country’ and presents very simplistic answers to… complex problems.”