US senator calls Russian govt 'fascist,' embassy shoots back
US Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon), who branded the Russian leadership “fascist” during Senate testimony on the alleged Russian meddling in the US elections, is “yet another US lawmaker who lost his senses,” Russia’s embassy in Washington has said.
US Internet giants Facebook, Twitter and Google were grilled by senators Tuesday over their role in Russia’s alleged efforts to compromise the 2016 US presidential election by placing political ads across the platforms. Some lawmakers went as far as to claim that Twitter, for instance, was “on the side of Russia” during the campaign, as it allowed the “Russia-linked” accounts to run ads.
While many jumped on the opportunity to berate Moscow, repeating trite claims of alleged election interference, with no new facts to support them, Senator Ron Wyden (D-Oregon) outdid them all by dubbing the Russian government "fascist."
“With the current fascist leadership of Russia enthusiastically undermining our democracy, America must defend the values that made us great and aggressively confront this espionage,” Wyden said.
Given the Soviet Union's immense contribution to the defeat of fascism in the WWII, the Russian embassy in the US quickly snapped back at the Senator's rhetoric, calling it an “unacceptable” outburst caused by the absence of any hard evidence of Russian interference.
“Today, the senator from Oregon, Ron Wyden, allowed an unacceptable insinuation against Russia by calling its leadership fascist. Has reason left yet another lawmaker in Washington? Did he understand what he was talking about? Or the main thing is to draw attention to yourself, if you can't beat any proof out of those you're questioning?” the embassy wrote in a Facebook post.
Wyden's remark was a “direct provocation” that “further damages already strained US-Russia relations,” the embassy said, reiterating that Moscow has never interfered in US domestic policy.
It called on Washington to focus on cooperation, in the spirit of the milestone meeting of the Soviet and American troops on the Elbe River on April 25,1945, during which the American and Russian soldiers embraced each other.
“And we won in that War against the Nazi plague. We won, because our peoples were together. We hope that in our bilateral relations “the spirit of the Elbe,” the spirit of cooperation, including military, will prevail,” the embassy said, noting that both countries need to join efforts in the fight against international terrorism.
“We must find a possibility to pool our efforts,” it said.
