Film icon Arnold Schwarzenegger is telling Russians in a social media video they're being lied to about the war in Ukraine and accuses President Vladimir Putin of sacrificing Russian soldiers' lives for his own ambitions.
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Schwarzenegger is hugely popular in Russia, and apparently also with Putin. The President of Russia Twitter account follows only 22 accounts, one of them the actor's.
In the nine-minute video, Schwarzenegger says Russian soldiers were told they'd be fighting Nazis in Ukraine, or to protect ethnic Russians in Ukraine or that were going on military exercises, and that they'd be greeted like heroes. He says many of the troops now know those claims were false.
"This is an illegal war," Schwarzenegger says, looking straight into the camera while seated at a desk in a study. "Your lives, your limbs, your futures are being sacrificed for a senseless war condemned by the entire world."
Schwarzenegger posted his emotional video on Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. While some of those services are blocked in Russia, he also posted it on the Telegram messaging app, which is not, where it has received more than half a million views. It is subtitled in Russian.
The former California governor brings up painful memories about how his own father was lied to as he fought with Adolf Hitler's forces during World War II, and how he returned to Austria a broken man emotionally and physically after being wounded at Leningrad.
He asks Russians to let their fellow citizens know about "the human catastrophe that is happening in Ukraine". The video shows bombed out buildings in Ukraine and people coming under Russian shelling.
He then addresses Putin directly, saying: "You started this war. You are leading this war. You can stop this war."
Schwarzenegger describes his long ties to Russia, having travelled there as a bodybuilder and film action hero. In 2010, as California governor, he led a Silicon Valley business delegation to Moscow.
He calls the Russians who have protested the invasion, and who have been arrested and manhandled, "my new heroes".
An adviser to the Ukrainian interior ministry, Anton Gerashchenko, who works to disseminate information about the war, urged Ukrainians to share the video with friends and relatives in Russia.
Australian Associated Press
