Russia’s Interior Ministry issued a warrant for the arrest of Sen. Lindsey Graham on Monday after he praised U.S. military aid to Ukraine as “the best money we’ve ever spent.”
The Russians reacted to a video of Graham saying “Russians are dying” and then said in another moment that “it’s the best money we ever spent.” Ukrainian President Zelensky posted a video to social media of the conversation. The video released by the Russians, however, appeared to edit the video to put the two comments together.
- Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov commented Sunday by saying: “It’s hard to imagine a greater shame for the country than having such senators.”
- Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev said “Graham shouldn’t have done that” and called the 67-year-old lawmaker an “old fool.”
“As usual the Russia propaganda machine is hard at work,” Graham commented to reporters.
“Mr. Medvedev, if you want Russians to stop dying in Ukraine, withdraw. Stop the invasion. Stop the war crimes. The truth is that you and Putin could care less about Russian soldiers.”
The head of Russian news channel RT’s Margarita Simonyan called for Graham’s assassination.
She invoked the name of a Soviet Lieutenant General Pavel Sudoplatov, who was involved in several major intelligence operations, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky.
Simonyan ominously pointed out: “If Lady Graham really said that the money for the killing of Russians is the best money the US ever spent… I hope that in our country, the sons or grandchildren of Sudoplatov are alive, his pupils, or the descendants of his pupils. It’s not even hard. We have his address.”