Senator Lindsey Graham of the United States has received much condemnation in Washington for proposing the killing of Russian President Vladimir Putin to stop the Ukraine conflict.
Graham, a longtime defense hawk, and former Air Force lawyer tweeted on Thursday that “the only people who can fix this” are Russians.
He tweeted “Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out.
“You would be doing your country – and the world – a great service.”
Some of Congress’s most conservative and liberal members have expressed their displeasure with the tweet.
Jen Psaki, the White House Press Secretary, stated that Graham’s proposal was “not the United States government’s position.”
Ted Cruz, a Republican senator from Texas, described it as “an exceptionally bad idea.”
Marjorie Taylor Greene, a Republican from Georgia who was recently chastised for speaking at a white nationalist rally, called Graham’s post “irresponsible, dangerous, and unhinged.”
According to Business Standard, Graham’s remark comes at a time when the White House is arranging a harsh Western response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine while avoiding a direct confrontation with Russia for fear of igniting a nuclear war.
The Russian President’s decision to raise the alert level on his country’s nuclear weapons sparked fears that he would consider taking the unthinkable step of deploying them.
The United States has ruled out deploying soldiers to Ukraine and has refused to agree to a no-fly zone over the country, which might result in conflicts with Russian airplanes.
