Putin 'greatest threat to democracy', says Republican US senator

Sen. Thom Tillis called Russian President Vladimir Putin as a "cancer" after US President Donald Trump criticized his Ukrainian counterpart over the ongoing war.

"Look, I'm a Republican, I support President Trump, and I believe that most of his policies on national security are right. I believe his instincts are pretty good.

"But what I'm telling you: Whoever believes that there is any space for Vladimir Putin in the future of a stable globe better go to Ukraine. They better go to Europe; they better invest the time to understand that this man is a cancer and the greatest threat to democracy in my lifetime," Tillis told on the Senate floor on Thursday.

His remarks came a day after Trump called his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelenskyy a "dictator" and warned that he "better move fast" to secure peace with Russia or risk losing his country.

Tension has risen after Trump and Zelenskyy traded rebukes in recent days following a meeting between the US and Russia in Saudi Arabia to start working together toward ending the war in Ukraine, which began in 2022.

While Zelenskyy accused Trump of living in a Russian "space of disinformation," Trump called Zelenskyy a "modestly successful comedian" and blamed him for starting the war with Russia.

Tillis, who recently returned from a trip to Kyiv, Ukraine, said Putin is "a liar, a murderer and a man responsible for ordering the systematic torture, kidnapping, and rape of innocent civilians."

"There is no moral person on this planet who can consider Putin to have a legitimate reason to effect this sort of carnage and I saw it first hand," he said.