Ukraine war: backlash after US lawmaker urges Russians to ‘take out’ Vladimir Putin
- In response to Senator Lindsey Graham’s call for the Russian leader’s assassination, the White House says it is not pushing for regime change
- The Russian ambassador to the US blasted Graham’s statements as ‘unacceptable and outrageous’, demanding an official explanation and condemnation
The White House is not advocating for regime change in Russia, President Joe Biden’s spokeswoman said on Friday after a US senator advocated for Russians to assassinate President Vladimir Putin.
“We are not advocating for killing the leader of a foreign country or regime change. That is not the policy of the United States,” White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters.
US senator Lindsey Graham had called in a televised interview on Thursday evening for “somebody in Russia” to assassinate President Vladimir Putin after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine.
“How does this end? Somebody in Russia has to step up to the plate … and take this guy out,” the senator told conservative Fox News TV host Sean Hannity.
He repeated the call later in a series of tweets, saying “the only people who can fix this are the Russian people”. “Is there a Brutus in Russia?” asked the senator, referring to one of Roman ruler Julius Caesar’s assassins.
The former presidential candidate also wondered if “a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg” existed in the Russian military, alluding to the German officer whose bomb failed to kill Adolf Hitler in 1944.
“You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service,” he added.
The senator, who has served in congress for over 20 years and has at times been a close ally to former president Donald Trump, had earlier in the day introduced a resolution condemning the Russian president and his military commanders for committing “war crimes” and “crimes against humanity”.
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The comments drew flack from both Republican and Democrat lawmakers. Republican Senator Ted Cruz responded to Graham’s post, calling it “an exceptionally bad idea”, while Democrat congresswoman Ilhan Omar tweeted: “I really wish our members of Congress would cool it and regulate their remarks as the administration works to avoid WWlll.”
The Russian ambassador to the United States Anatoly Antonov blasted Graham’s statements as “unacceptable and outrageous”.
He called out what he said was “off the scale” hatred towards Russia in the United States and demanded “official explanations and a strong condemnation of the criminal statements”.
“It is impossible to believe that a senator of a country that promotes its moral values as a ‘guiding star’ for all mankind could afford to call for terrorism as a way to achieve Washington’s goals in the international arena,” he told reporters, according to a post on the embassy’s Facebook page.
Reuters and Agence France-Presse
