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Schwarzenegger urged Vladimir Putin to end his invasion of Ukraine.

Actor and former politician Arnold Schwarzenegger has a sizable following of fans all over the world, including in Russia, which is still conducting an invasion of Ukraine. Last night, Schwarzenegger took to his social media to deliver a plea to the Russian people, attempting to debunk the misinformation that the Russian government has circulated about the invasion.

“I am speaking to you today because there are things that are going on in the world that are being kept from you, terrible things that you should know about,” Schwarzenegger said.

“Ukraine did not start this war,” he said. “Neither did nationalists or Nazis. Those in power in the Kremlin started this war. This is not the Russian people’s war.”

While Russia does not have access to Twitter at the moment, much of the information Schwarzenegger shared has found its way onto other social media platforms, including Telegram, which can be accessed by the Russian populace. He stressed to any Russian troops that see his plea that “your lives, your limbs, your futures are being sacrificed for a senseless war being condemned by the entire world.”

The official Twitter account for the president of Russia follows 22 others — and one of them is Arnold Schwarzenegger, who in a video posted on Thursday debunked Russian disinformation about the war on Ukraine and urged Putin to end the conflict.https://t.co/O1kTCsoenr

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 17, 2022

As someone originally from Austria, whose own father fought on the side of the Nazis in World War II, Schwarzenegger has said that seeing this invasion has weighed very heavily on him. He said that his father went to war hyped up on nationalist fervor, and returned utterly broken, a fate that will likely befall many Russian troops whenever the invasion ends.

Schwarzenegger also extended a direct message to Russian President Vladimir Putin: “You started this war. You are leading this war. You can stop this war.”