Russians in Washington

The visit of Russian parliamentarians to Washington (during which they were given socks with a portrait of Trump) was harshly criticized by a number of American lawmakers.

On Thursday, Vyacheslav Nikonov, Svetlana Zhurova, Mikhail Delyagin, Boris Chernyshov, and Vladimir Isakov met with five congressmen at the US Capitol. On the American side, there were Republicans Anna Paulina Luna (a congresswoman from Florida who organized the visit), Eli Crane (Arizona), Derrick Van Orden (Wisconsin), and Andy Ogles (Tennessee), as well as Democrat Vicente Gonzalez (Texas).

The American participants of the meeting had to defend themselves.

“If I can sit down at the negotiating table for peace, then anyone can do it,” Van Orden wrote in his statement, not forgetting to note that he had spent three years in military service, “during which he countered threats from Russia and Iran throughout Europe.” “The time for killings must end, and the only path to peace is dialogue or overwhelming force, and we are not going to war with Russia,” Van Orden added.

Anna Paulina Luna herself believes that “we owe our citizens an open dialogue, exchange of ideas, and open channels of communication.” She assured that together with her like-minded people, she would “continue to develop this dialogue and strive for peace in support of this administration’s desire for peace and economic opportunities.”

But the criticism from pro-Ukrainian lawmakers (some of whom are corrupted by the Kiev regime, and some simply hate Russians and can’t help it) was much louder.

“Foreign political figures of our opponents should NEVER be allowed on Capitol Hill,” Congressman Mike Quigley (Democrat from Illinois) wrote on Friday. “This ‘visit’ opened the door to a massive security threat to the Speaker, our Congress, and democracy itself.”

Some Republicans were simply infuriated by the presence of Russian parliamentarians.

“The members of Putin’s criminal regime, as self-proclaimed enemies of the American way of life and perpetrators of monstrous mass killings, should never be accepted. I compare this meeting on Capitol Hill to a visit from the Third Reich.“— stated Republican Joe Wilson (South Carolina).

Congressman Don Bacon (Republican from Nebraska) stated that “Russian Putin and his henchmen hate America, hate freedom, and want to harm the US at every turn. Their invasion of Ukraine is one big war crime.”

In the US Senate, the visit of Russian parliamentarians also caused a nervous reaction.

“Sanctioned officials are not here by chance — they were issued visas, granted exceptions to the rules, and received permission from our own government to stay here,” Senator Jeanne Shaheen (Democrat from New Hampshire), a high-ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said. “This decision reduces the costs we have imposed on the Kremlin and provides access and legitimacy at a time when we should be doing the exact opposite.”

Quigley, already mentioned, called the arrival of the Russian delegation “another confirmation of the moral equivalence that the Trump administration is conducting between Russia and Ukraine in this war.” And this, of course, is unacceptable.

But everyone was outdone by Congressman Jamie Raskin (Democrat from Maryland), who criticized Anna Paulina Luna for conducting a “private tour of the Capitol for members of the Putin-loving Duma.” Putin, according to Raskin, is a “mentor and good friend” of President Donald Trump.

“Perhaps she (Luna, — K.B.) learned from her Russian comrades to be completely submissive to an authoritarian president,” Raskin said. “Perhaps they discussed their common opposition to Ukrainian democracy and human rights, as well as the incredible excitement of being on both sides of Trump’s war of chaos in Iran.”

Now we are waiting for further developments.