WASHINGTON – Sen. John McCain and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin took their war of words to a new level Thursday when Putin told a question-and-answer session the Arizona Republican had blood on his hands and McCain responded by tweeting “Dear Vlad, is it something I said?”
McCain, who has been weighing in on the side of democracy protesters in Russia since early December, also told FOX News Channel Thursday, “I think that obviously Mr. Putin — Vlad, as I love to call him — is a little bit stung. But seriously, it’s very clear that these uprisings and demonstrations have really unsettled him and the oligarchy that controls Russia … that is clear why he reacted in such a strange and vociferous fashion.”
The spat has also included such twitter zingers from McCain as “Dear Vlad, the Arab Spring is coming to a neighborhood near you” and “Spring is in the Russian air.”
Putin swung back Thursday during his annual question call-in show, according to state-owned news agency Ria Novosti, saying, “It is not a secret that McCain took part in the US-Vietnamese war…he’s got enough blood of peaceful civilians on his hands.
“He probably…cannot live without these disgusting scenes of (Libyan leader Moamar) Ghadafi’s murder when all the world’s channels broadcast how he was killed.”
He also said it was “well known that Mr. McCain was captured in Vietnam and was locked not just in prison but in a hole, where he was imprisoned for several years. Any person would have bats in the belfry after that.”