Putin could end war today by withdrawing his troops from Ukraine - White House

Russian President Vladimir Putin started the Russian-Ukrainian war, and he could end it today by withdrawing his troops from Ukraine.

According to Ukrinform, White House NSC Coordinator for Strategic Communications John Kirby said this in the "This Week" program on ABC News.

"What I can tell you is that Mr. Putin started this war and Mr. Putin could end it today -- simply by moving his troops out of the country. He's the one who chose to start this conflict, again, he can choose to end it, and the president was talking about finding a way to end this war, which we all want to do. We all want to see this war end. It's gone on way too long," he said.

According to Kirby, now Putin is showing with his decisions that he is not going to stop.

"Now, Mr. Putin has shown no indications, zero, none, that he's willing to do that. In fact, quite the contrary, by calling up hundreds of thousands of reservists, by politically annexing or at least trying to annex four areas of Ukraine, he's showing every indication that he's doubling down, that he wants to continue to prosecute this war," he said.

Kirby added that U.S. officials are in touch almost daily with their Ukrainian counterparts, and Washington will continue to provide security assistance to Kyiv.

"You just saw the president [Joe Biden] approve another more than $600 million just a few days ago of additional HIMARS and howitzers and another ammunition and some vehicles, tactical vehicles. You're going to see us continue to do that going forward," he said.