‘Clumsy excuses’: Russian Foreign Ministry on claim Graham’s words taken out of context
TASSMay 29, 2023
The Facts
On Monday, Russia’s Interior Ministry issued an arrest warrant for US Senator Lindsey Graham following the lawmaker's comments on the conflict in Ukraine released last Friday.
In a video released by Ukraine’s presidential office — splicing together differing periods of Graham’s conversation with Ukraine's Pres. Zelenskyy — the Senator’s comments have led to backlash from Russia.
The Spin
Pro-Russia narrative
What Graham said cannot be unsaid, and now the Western propaganda machine — led by the likes of the BBC and Reuters — is attempting to de-escalate the situation. The idea that Graham’s statements were taken out of context is a clumsy and shameless excuse to hide the continued hatred of Russia by the West.
Anti-Russia narrative
The posted comments by Graham were originally edited together, and it's incredibly unlikely anything will come from Russia’s arrest warrant. With the US and Russia lacking an extradition treaty, and relations between the West and Russia at a low, it is difficult to see this absurd posturing by the Kremlin progressing any further.
Nerd narrative
There is a 21% chance that there will be a US-Russia war before 2050, according to the Metaculus prediction community.