Lindsey Graham Calls Putin a ‘War Criminal’: ‘We Need to Go After Him Personally’
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) called Russian President Vladimir Putin a “thug” and a “war criminal” on Thursday, and called for the U.S. to go after him “personally.”
Putin announced just before dawn on Russian state TV that he had authorized a military incursion into Ukraine. Russian forces hit key cities, airports, and military military infrastructure nationwide beginning Thursday morning.
It is unclear at this moment how many people have been killed, or how many Russian infantry troops have entered Ukraine from Russia, Crimea, and Belarus.
Putin stated in his address to the Russian people that his invasion was for the “demilitarization and de-Nazification of Ukraine.”
According to Graham, Putin’s actions mirror those of Adolf Hitler and the Nazis at the beginning of the Second World War.
The senator joined host Eric Bolling on Newsmax Tv’s The Balance to discuss Putin’s brazen actions.
“I would restrict travel to Russia,” Graham said. “I would treat Russia as an extreme case of Covid and isolate it.”
Bolling asked Graham, “Sir, I think you tweeted that you would consider Vladimir Putin a war criminal, what does that mean?”
“It means that he’s a war criminal. It means that he went into Ukraine, a sovereign nation, and started killing people by force of arms. He invaded a sovereign nation against all legal norms. He’s criminally killing civilians.”
Graham then cited a deal between the U.S. and Ukraine from 1994 in which Kyiv agreed to surrender its nuclear arsenal to Russia — the third-largest in the world — after the fall of the Soviet Union.
The deal was brokered by the U.S. and its allies, and in exchange, Russia vowed not to encroach on Ukraine’s sovereignty.
“Britain, the United States, and Russia signed that agreement,” Graham said. “So Putin tore it up like Hitler did, and there needs to be a price.”
Graham concluded, “So, he’s a war criminal, but he’s a crook and he’s a thug and we need to go after him personally.”
Watch above, via Newsmax TV.
