Nigel Farage was caught off guard at a campaign rally on Saturday when a banner showing a smiling Vladimir Putin dropped down behind him on stage.

The Reform UK leader asked: “Who put that up there?” and said someone at the venue in Walton-on-the-Naze, Essex, should “get the sack” after the poster – planted by Led By Donkeys, a campaign group – slowly descended from the ceiling as he spoke.

The banner showed the Russian president smiling and giving a thumbs up, with the message “I [heart] Nigel” in bold lettering across the bottom.

It comes after Mr Farage was accused of “playing into Putin’s hands” by claiming the West provoked Russia into invading Ukraine. In an interview with BBC Panorama, he said the “ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union” gave Putin a reason to justify war.

Rishi Sunak accused Mr Farage of appeasing the Russian president, while Boris Johnson claimed the Reform leader was spouting “Kremlin propaganda” after he doubled down on his comments.

Mr Farage has refused to back down, last week suggesting the Conservatives were capitalising on the row to distract from their own problems.

The stunt was carried out as the Reform leader delivered a speech at the Columbine Centre in Walton-on-the-Naze.

Posting footage of the incident on social media, Led By Donkeys said: “We just dropped in on Farage’s election rally with a beaming picture of Putin. Nigel was not pleased.”

In the video, the banner can be seen slowly descending behind Mr Farage midway through his speech, as he condemns “the poison that is being taught to our children”, claiming pupils are only being told “the bad things that we did in our history”.

It cuts to a clip of the Reform leader pointing at the poster and asking: “Who put that up there?” To cheers from the crowd, he adds: “Someone at the Columbine Centre needs to get the sack – are we agreed?”

After the audience chants “rip it down”, two men on stage begin to tug at the banner but appear unable to dislodge it.

In his interview with the BBC’s Nick Robinson earlier this month, Mr Farage was asked why he had “blamed the West” for Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.

He replied: “It was obvious to me that the ever-eastward expansion of Nato and the European Union was giving this man a reason to say, ‘they’re coming for us again’ and to go to war.”

Asked whether his rhetoric was echoing that of the Russian president, he said: “But, hang on a second, we provoked this war. It’s – you know, of course, it’s his fault, he’s used what we’ve done as an excuse.”

In response, Mr Sunak said: “What he said was completely wrong and only plays into Putin’s hands. This is a man who deployed nerve agents on the streets of Britain, who’s doing deals with countries like North Korea. 

“And this kind of appeasement is dangerous for Britain’s security, the security of our allies that rely on us and only emboldens Putin further.”

In a follow-up article for The Telegraph, Mr Farage insisted he had never been “an apologist or supporter of Putin”, adding: “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.

“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.”