No10: Putin should be put on trial for war crimes not assassinated
No10 says Putin should NOT be assassinated: UK wants dictator tried for war crimes after US senator’s extraordinary plea for a ‘Brutus of Russia’ to take him out – as Tories say regime change is the only way for country to escape isolation
- Lindsey Graham demanded Julius Caesar-style ending to Putin’s leadership
- No10 said Putin ‘must be held (to) account in front of an international court’
- Tory backbenchers suggested regime change is the only way out of the standoff
Downing Street rejected American demands for Vladimir Putin to be assassinated today, insisting the Russian leader had to be tried for his crimes in Ukraine.
The Government refused to back a call from right-wing Republican senator Lindsey Graham for a Julius Caesar-style ending of his leadership of Russia.
The Trump supporter used an appearance on Fox News and tweets to ask if there was ‘a Brutus in Russia’ or a ‘more successful Colonel Stauffenberg’ – a reference to the German officer who attempted to kill Adolf Hitler.
But asked if the PM agreed, his spokesman today told reporters: ‘No, we stand with the Ukrainian people in demanding the immediate end to the Russian invasion.
‘We’ve said before that Putin must be held (to) account in front of an international court for the horrific act he’s committed.’
Conservative backbenchers also distanced themselves from the assassination call – but suggested regime change is the only way out of the standoff.
Tory MP Mark Francois, a member of the Commons Defence Committee, told MailOnline: ‘It is now clear that Russia will remain a pariah state as long as Vladimir Putin – the man who commanded the invasion of a peaceful democratic country in Ukraine – remains as president.’
Senator Lindsey Graham called on Russians to carry assassinate their president Vladimir Putin
The Government refused to back a call from right-wing Republican senator Lindsey Graham for a Julius Caesar-style ending of his leadership of Russia.
The Republican Senator invoked a Julius Caesar-style assignation of Putin who is currently leading an invasion of Ukraine during an appearance on Fox News ‘ Hannity show
Tory MP Mark Francois told MailOnline: ‘It is now clear that Russia will remain a pariah state as long as Vladimir Putin remains as president.’ Fellow backbencher Craig Mackinlay said: ‘The only way Russia can ever be ac’cepted back into the league of nations is regime change. That’s obvious.
‘You too, Brutus?’ The most famous betrayal in Western history
Marcus Junius Brutus helped lead the assassination of Julius Caesar in the Roman Senate, and his name is associated with betrayal.
Caesar was a politician and general of the late Roman republic who lived from 100 – 44 BC, becoming its first dictator.
As a general from 60 – 68 BC, Caesar added the whole of modern France and Belgium to the Roman empire, and crushed rebel Gallic forces across Europe in the Gallic wars.
He won a civil war that effectively ended the republic and used his power to carry out much-needed reform, relieving debt, enlarging the senate, building the Forum Iulium and revising the calendar.
But his ambition and success eventually led to his downfall when a group of republican senators assassinated him in 44 BC.
Led by Brutus and Gaius Cassius Longinus, 60 co-conspirators stabbed him 23 times.
Brutus struck Caesar in the groin. It was later written that Brutus, a former supporter of Caeser, was reproached in Greek with the words ‘You, too, my child?’
This was adapted to the Latin ‘et tu, Brute?’ by William Shakespeare, whose play 1,600 years later immortalised the betrayal.
Fellow backbencher Craig Mackinlay said: ‘The only way Russia can ever be accepted back into the league of nations is regime change. That’s obvious.
‘The West will not deal with Putin in the future.’
One MP pointed to claims that tip-offs from within Russia had been helping Zelensky dodge assassination attempts.
A former minister also warned against getting too carried away with hopes of a coup, pointing out that Russia had been subject to rule by autocrats for centuries.
‘Fifty people might demonstrate against Putin in Moscow, but Siberia is a very big place,’ they said.
In a separate tweet Graham added that the responsibility of eliminating Putin laid solely in the hands of Russian citizens.
The tweets prompted a furious response from the Russian ambassador to the US. Anatoly Antonov called Graham’s remarks ‘unacceptable and outrageous’ and demanded an explanation.
‘The only people who can fix this are the Russian people,’ Graham tweeted. ‘Easy to say, hard to do. Unless you want to live in darkness for the rest of your life, be isolated from the rest of the world in abject poverty, and live in darkness you need to step up to the plate.’
Graham’s call for Putin to be assassinated drew a stern rebuke from Russia, with Ambassador Antonov accusing him of inciting terrorism.
Antonov said today: ‘I find the statement of the American politician unacceptable and outrageous.
‘The degree of Russophobia and hatred in the US towards Russia is off the charts. It’s unbelievable 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.
‘It’s getting scary for the fate of the United States, which has such irresponsible and unprofessional politicians at the helm.
‘We demand official explanations and decisive condemnation of this American’s criminal statements.’
The prospect of Vladimir Putin ending up in the dock for the crime of aggression against Ukraine is ‘a realistic option’, Gordon Brown has insisted.
The former prime minister called on countries to support the creation of a special tribunal to punish the Russian leader.
Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba said on Friday that there have been ‘numerous cases’ of rapes in his country as the Russian invasion continues, and thanked people for their continued support of the under-fire nation.
Mr Brown, said the plan to set up a new international tribunal is modelled on the actions of the nations which met in London during the Second World War to draft a resolution on Nazi war crimes, which led to the creation of the International Military Tribunals and the Nuremberg trials.
The former Labour leader said a new international tribunal is needed as well as existing international investigations by the International Criminal Court.
He said he believes it is ‘a realistic option’ that Mr Putin could end up at a tribunal, adding that governments in the European Union, some Baltic states as well as the UK have all been contacted about the idea of a setting up the legal mechanism.
He said: ‘I hope they are looking at it with an eye to making a decision to support this but they’re certainly looking at this with a great deal of care and resilience in the way that they are wanting to find ways to deal with this problem.’
Graham is not the first conservative to call for Putin’s death this week.
Earlier this week Fox News host Sean Hannity said: ‘Cut the head of the snake off and you kill the snake.’
‘What we really need in this crisis, more than anything else, is a worldwide condemnation,’ Hannity said on his daytime radio show.
‘And it’s a simple new rule that if you invade an innocent sovereign country, and you kill innocent men, women and children, you don’t deserve to live. That’s the bottom line.’
‘Now currently the U.S. operates under a decades-old executive order signed by [former President] Gerald Ford that prohibits the U.S. government employees from engaging in political assassinations.
‘And I’m like, ‘You cut the head of the snake off and you kill the snake. Right now the snake is Vladimir Putin,’ Hannity added.
It comes as Russian troops have seized Europe’s largest nuclear power plant in Ukraine after a firefight that set part of the complex ablaze.
Russian troops attacked the Zaporizhzhia plant in the early hours of Friday, with CCTV capturing a fierce gun battle between Putin’s men and Ukrainian defenders that sparked a fire in a six-storey training building just outside the main complex.
Moscow’s men then stopped firefighters getting to the building for several hours as fighting raged.
Eventually, emergency crews were allowed to go in and douse the flames before Russian troops moved in an occupied the site, which provides a fifth of Ukraine’s electricity.
The UN’s nuclear monitoring agency said that, fortunately, none of the site’s six reactors had been directly damaged and radiation levels remained normal.
However, news that Russian soldiers had put the plant at risk by opening fire close by and shelling it sparked dire warnings and international condemnation – with the head of the International Nuclear Energy Agency saying he was ‘deeply concerned’.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who spoke with Zelensky after the plant was attacked, called the attack ‘reckless’ and said Putin is now ‘threatening the security of the whole of Europe’.
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