The United States on Friday taunted Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept the truth and withdraw troops from Ukraine after he finally called the conflict a “war.”
Since Putin ordered the attack in February, Russia has officially spoken of a “special military operation” and has enacted a law condemning what officials call a misleading phrase.
But at a press conference on Thursday, Putin himself used the word “war” as he said he hoped to end it as soon as possible.
“Since February 24, the United States and the whole world knew that Putin’s “special military operation” was an unprovoked and unjust war against Ukraine. Finally, after “of 300 days, Putin called the war what it is,” a State Department spokesman. said.
“As the next step in accepting the truth, we urge him to end this war by withdrawing his forces from Ukraine.”
The State Department said that, despite Putin’s words, “Russia’s violence against its independent neighbor has caused death, destruction and displacement.”
“There is no doubt that the people of Ukraine get little comfort from Putin stating the obvious, nor from the tens of thousands of Russian families whose relatives were killed fighting Putin’s war.”
A Russian court earlier this month sentenced opposition politician Ilya Yashin to eight and a half years in prison under a new law for his “false information” about the war.
Yashin had spoken of a “brutal massacre” in Bucha, a town near the Ukrainian capital Kyiv where the bullet-riddled bodies of Ukrainians in civilian clothes with their hands tied behind their backs were found after for the Russian troops to withdraw.
An opposition lawyer who condemned the attack, Nikita Yuferev, on Friday said he wanted legal action against Putin for spreading “false news” about his “war”.