US Sen. Lindsey Graham called on Russians to assassinate President Vladimir Putin on Thursday night, as Ukraine pleaded with the West to fight the “nuclear terror.”
Graham (R-SC), 66, made the call to action on Twitter as he compared Putin to Roman dictator Julius Caesar and Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.
“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military?” Graham wrote.
“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.”
Moments before Graham tweeted the call to action, he made a similar statement during an appearance on Fox News’ “Hannity.”
“The only people that can fix this are the Russian people,” he said. “Easy to say, hard to do, but I’m begging you in Russia, unless you want to live in darkness for the rest of your life, be isolated from the world, be in abject poverty, you need to step up to the plate and take this guy out.”
When host Sean Hannity suggested that whoever succeeds Putin could turn out to be worse than the tyrannical Russian leader, Graham answered: “I’m willing to take that bet.”
Putin was said to be holed up in the Ural Mountains, fuming at the resistance his army is facing in Ukraine — and at home — as his attack on Russia’s peaceful neighbor entered its second week.
Graham’s extraordinary call for the assassination of a head of state came as Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelensky called on Europe to take “immediate action” after Russian troops shelled the continent’s largest nuclear power plant Friday morning.
If the Zaporizhzhia plant in the port city of Enerhodar had exploded, it would be “the end for everyone. The end for Europe. The evacuation of Europe,” Zelensky said.
A day earlier, Graham had reportedly said it was a mistake for former President Donald Trump to call Putin a “genius” by declaring two Moscow-backed separatist enclaves independent and touching off the conflict.
“Let’s just make it clear, Putin’s not a genius, he’s a war criminal,” said Graham, according to CNN.
Thursday night, however, Graham insisted that Russia did not invade Ukraine while Trump was president “because Trump would have kicked their ass … the reason he [Putin] didn’t do this on Trump’s watch is because he was afraid of him.”
“What’s happened is that Putin looks at [President] Biden, he’s sized him up, he thinks he can get away with it, and he’s going to keep going and going and going and nobody in the West is going to stop him,” the senator added.