Senate Republican: Putin 'killing anyone who disagrees with him'
Sen. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) criticized Russian President Vladimir Putin's track record of killing his perceived enemies on Monday, coming as President Trump and his Cabinet studiously avoid criticizing the Russian leader as they pursue peace talks.
"Putin routinely throws people who disagree with him out of windows or blows up the planes they are in. He has not just invaded Ukraine. He is killing anyone who disagrees with him," Cassidy wrote on the social platform X.
A number of Putin's most high-profile political foes have ended up dead, including opposition leader Alexey Navalny, who died in prison last year, and Yevgeny Prigozhin, who died in a plane crash weeks after leading an attempted rebellion in 2023.
Last Tuesday, several Republican senators, including Cassidy and Senate Majority Leader John Thune (S.D.), said that Russia is solely to blame for the ongoing Ukraine-Russia war.
“Russia’s clearly the aggressor," Cassidy said.
That's not the message coming from the White House in recent days, following a hostile meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. Trump previously blamed Zelensky for Russia's invasion, and on Friday said the Ukrainian leader is not ready for peace.
The Louisiana Republican last week responded to the U.S. vote against a U.N. resolution condemning Russia's aggression by citing a quote from the military tribunal that oversaw the 1946 Nuremberg trials, which prosecuted Nazi war crimes.
“To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole,” read the quote, as shared by Cassidy on X.
Cassidy's Monday morning comments come in the wake of Zelensky's high-profile trip to Washington, which descended into acrimony before the Ukrainian leader could sign a mineral rights deal with Trump.
Trump has been widely criticized by Democrats for turning against Zelensky as he seeks to warm relations with Putin. The president has also riled former advisers and officials, with his former national security adviser, H.R. McMaster, saying the president is “being played” by Putin, as had past presidents.
Trump issued an angry response to McMaster on Monday.
"We should spend less time worrying about Putin," Trump wrote on Truth Social.
“H.R. MCMASTER IS A WEAK AND TOTALLY INEFFECTIVE LOSER!” he added.
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