Russians deserve better than a leader who allies with tyrants and rules through violence and repression, Sen. John McCain said Thursday in a scathing op-ed seen as a retort to an earlier article by President Vladimir Putin.
Mr. McCain, Arizona Republican, lashed out at Mr. Putin’s record at home and abroad, and especially in Syria, where the former KGB officer repeatedly has used Moscow’s veto power in the U.N. Security Council to protect Syrian President Bashar Assad.
Mr. Putin “is not enhancing Russia’s global reputation. He is destroying it. He has made her a friend to tyrants and an enemy to the oppressed, and untrusted by nations that seek to build a safer, more peaceful and prosperous world,” Mr. McCain said in the op-ed, published on news website Pravda.ru.
The editorial is headlined “Russians deserve better than Putin,” and in it Mr. McCain tells the Russian people that he is not anti-Russian but “more pro-Russian than the regime that misrules you today.”
He slams Mr. Putin and his associates for disrespecting human rights, punishing dissenters, rigging elections, controlling media and ruling “by corruption, repression and violence.”
Pravda.ru considers itself a successor to the Soviet-era Communist Party newspaper but is not connected to it, according to Reuters news agency. Like the newspaper, which still exists, it has a limited readership in Russia, the agency said.
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Earlier this month, Mr. Putin wrote an op-ed for The New York Times that criticized U.S. policies on Syria.
LINK TO OP-ED https://english.pravda.ru/opinion/19-09-2013/125705-McCain_for_pravda_ru-0/
• Shaun Waterman can be reached at swaterman@washingtontimes.com.
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