Russian officials criticized US Senator Lindsey Graham for remarks they said he made during a recent trip to Kiev, but Graham has refuted their claims. Graham looked to be cheering Russian killings in a video that the Ukrainian president's office released, but the senator has since said that "Russian propaganda" is to blame for the uproar.
Graham meets with President Vladimir Zelensky in the video, which Kiev released on Sunday, and they talk about US military aid to Ukraine. The Russians are dying, Graham is heard stating in the video at one point. We've never spent better money than this. An editing clip separates the phrases.
Moscow swiftly responded angrily to the statement, saying that "it is difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators." Dmitry Medvedev, a former president, referred to the 67-year-old Republican as a "old fool."
The Interior Ministry of Russia has issued an arrest order for Graham, and Aleksandr Bastrykin, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, has also asked for the filing of a criminal complaint on the senator's comments.
Graham, though, rejected the criticism in a letter to Reuters and attacked what he termed the "Russian propaganda machine." The senator clarified that what he said to Zelensky was that "the United States' contribution to the liberation of Ukraine has been a good investment."
Reuters pointed out that there was no obvious evidence in the unaltered version of the video tape that the statements about Russians dying and US money being well spent came from separate periods of the discussion. According to the source, a complete, unedited transcript of Graham's conversation with Zelensky reportedly disproves the assertion that there was any connection between the two remarks.
However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has criticized Graham's "cannibalistic attempts" to defend his words. The ministry said in response to the Reuters piece that the publication was engaging in "crisis management" on behalf of the senator and making "ridiculous and shameful excuses" after his "Russophobic" remarks generated a storm of criticism.
Any attempts to defend such claims will fall short. Even if mentioned separately, it is already hard to erase such statements, the ministry stated in a news release, adding that Graham had previously made similar claims. Other US and Ukrainian officials have also made similar remarks.
The ministry claimed that Reuters had damaged its credibility with its "cowardly excuses and ridiculous attempts to shield Lindsey Graham" and claimed that the news organization was not doing journalism but rather serving as a PR firm that carried out the wishes of the "collective West."
Graham meets with President Vladimir Zelensky in the video, which Kiev released on Sunday, and they talk about US military aid to Ukraine. The Russians are dying, Graham is heard stating in the video at one point. We've never spent better money than this. An editing clip separates the phrases.
Moscow swiftly responded angrily to the statement, saying that "it is difficult to imagine a greater shame for a country than having such senators." Dmitry Medvedev, a former president, referred to the 67-year-old Republican as a "old fool."
The Interior Ministry of Russia has issued an arrest order for Graham, and Aleksandr Bastrykin, the chairman of the Investigative Committee of Russia, has also asked for the filing of a criminal complaint on the senator's comments.
Graham, though, rejected the criticism in a letter to Reuters and attacked what he termed the "Russian propaganda machine." The senator clarified that what he said to Zelensky was that "the United States' contribution to the liberation of Ukraine has been a good investment."
Reuters pointed out that there was no obvious evidence in the unaltered version of the video tape that the statements about Russians dying and US money being well spent came from separate periods of the discussion. According to the source, a complete, unedited transcript of Graham's conversation with Zelensky reportedly disproves the assertion that there was any connection between the two remarks.
However, the Russian Foreign Ministry has criticized Graham's "cannibalistic attempts" to defend his words. The ministry said in response to the Reuters piece that the publication was engaging in "crisis management" on behalf of the senator and making "ridiculous and shameful excuses" after his "Russophobic" remarks generated a storm of criticism.
Any attempts to defend such claims will fall short. Even if mentioned separately, it is already hard to erase such statements, the ministry stated in a news release, adding that Graham had previously made similar claims. Other US and Ukrainian officials have also made similar remarks.
The ministry claimed that Reuters had damaged its credibility with its "cowardly excuses and ridiculous attempts to shield Lindsey Graham" and claimed that the news organization was not doing journalism but rather serving as a PR firm that carried out the wishes of the "collective West."
