The chairman of the Scottish Unionist Party has compared Ireland to Russia in an extraordinary Twitter rant.
Dr Jon Stanley has drawn widespread criticism for his stinging words about Ireland amid Vladimir Putin's attempt to invade Ukraine.
Dr Stanley tweeted: "Ireland is this week condemning Russia for.....doing what Ireland has been doing for a century.
"Doesn't respect its neighbour. Runs a hybrid war. Supports terrorism throughout its history and continues to threaten terrorism, uses every trick in the book to coerce its neighbour.
"No, you can't have your cake and eat it. The NIP lowered the threshold for Putin. He saw from the sidelines that the EU is prepared to undermine its neighbours sovereignty. He's encroached onto Ukraine, EU encroached onto NI.
"It's not a question of moral superiority, is it?
"It really is outrageous isn't it? No other country except Ireland and Russia nonchalantly, casually, interferes with the sovereignty and running of its neighbour.
"What has the UK got from engaging with terrorists? What did the French and Spanish do? Who's come off better?"
The take has been slammed online as "plain wrong" with thousands of responses to the opinion.
It's not the only time Ireland has been randomly mentioned in the same sentence as Russia, with the country's foreign minister making a bizarre comparison on Friday.
In a press conference on Friday morning, Sergei Lavrov, fielded questions from reporters.
One of them was related to the potential banning of the Russian language in Ukraine.
Mr Lavrov responded: "For example if in Ireland they prohibited the English language, what would the UK think about it? I can't imagine that a law like that would last for more than a couple of days."
