US Senator John McCain penned a blistering column for a Russian news website on Thursday, telling the Russian people that their President Vladimir Putin is a dissent-quashing tyrant who “doesn’t believe in you.”
The senior US lawmaker and the 2008 Republican presidential nominee accosted Putin and his associates for rigging elections, imprisoning and murdering opponents, fostering corruption and “destroying” Russia’s reputation on the world stage.
“I am not anti-Russian,” McCain wrote in the piece for Pravda.Ru website. “I am pro-Russian, more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.” McCain last week said he intended to write an op-ed piece for Russian media after Putin had his own column published in The New York Times.
Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Russian News Service radio that the president would read the piece, but is unlikely to respond.