Washington calls on Putin to end 'vicious invasion' of Ukraine

Vladimir Putin has failed to break Ukraine, a senior US official said on Thursday, calling on the Russian president to immediately halt his "vicious invasion."

There is a clear way to stop "this fire" which is "for Russia to stop it's vicious war against Ukraine," Victoria Nuland, US under secretary of state for political affairs, said in her address to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) Ministerial Council.

She also urged Belarus to "cease to be an enabling platform for these vicious attacks."

"(Putin) has failed to break Ukraine, with his vicious invasion with his war crimes, and human rights abuses, and now his cruel attack on the most vulnerable, young people, the elderly, plunging millions into cold and darkness," said Nuland.

Putin also failed to break the OSCE, which is why the US remains optimistic about the future despite "all the horrors of this year," she added.

"It's important not just for Europe, it's important for the world because this organization has set the gold standard for tools that we are now exporting to other continents to help solve conflicts, defend democracy, to defend a free press, defend security, ensure military transparency," she said.

"That needs to continue here, and it will, thanks to the resilience that we've created, but it also needs to continue around the world," she added.

Maybe one day Russia's "benighted citizens … will once again have the chance to live under a more free system," Nuland continued.

"The system that Ukraine is fighting so hard for and that so many of the rest of us enjoy; a system where dignity is respected, where elections are free, where the press is free, where there is accountability and justice, where leaders work for the people and not the other way around," she added.