The “Austrian Oak” Arnold Schwarzenegger urged Vladimir Putin on Thursday to cease the “senseless” war in Ukraine and commended Russians opposing the violence as his “new heroes.”

“Ukraine did not start this war,” the former California governor said in an emotional message to the people of Russia and Russian troops posted to his Twitter account and other platforms.

“I’m speaking to you today because there are things going on in the world that are being kept from you, terrible things that you should know about,” he stated in the stunning nine-minute film, which was captioned in Russian.

The Austrian-born former bodybuilding champion, whose film “Red Heat” was the first American film to be shot in Moscow’s Red Square, spoke of his admiration for Russians and his childhood meeting with his idol, Russian weightlifter Yuri Vlasov.