After years of threatening Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and even openly calling for his assassination, Vladimir Putin’s top propaganda stars are now gleefully hoping for more sudden deaths in the Trump administration.
Graham, 71, died Saturday evening due to what his office described as a “brief and sudden illness.” The fact that it happened shortly after he returned from a trip to Ukraine was quickly seized upon by Russian state TV’s most influential propagandists.
Head of RT Margarita Simonyan was among those gloating over Graham’s sudden passing. Suggesting he was “perhaps a natural-born fascist,” she claimed his visit with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky was to blame for his shocking death.
“There, they will explain everything to him... I think they will even explain it to him in Russian,” she said while appearing on Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov, apparently fantasizing about Graham in the afterlife.
This despite famously calling for Graham’s assassination on Russia’s tightly controlled state television in 2023. At that time, Simonyan invoked the name of Soviet Lieutenant General Pavel Sudoplatov, who was involved in several major intelligence operations, including the assassination of Leon Trotsky. “I hope that in our country, the sons or grandchildren of Sudoplatov are alive, his pupils, or the descendants of his pupils,” she said.
Simonyan ominously pointed out, “It’s not even hard. We have his address.”
State TV host Vladimir Solovyov and Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev often berated Graham and resorted to thinly veiled threats against the American senator.
But they have now abruptly changed their tune, attempting to pin the blame on the Ukrainian leader, who recently met with the American senator in Kyiv. This suggestion was especially ludicrous, since the Kremlin’s talking heads couldn’t conceal their glee about the untimely passing of their American nemesis.
Host Vladimir Solovyov started his opening monologue on Sunday Evening With Vladimir Solovyov by gloating, “Lindsey Graham croaked today. Maybe I should speak the way Christian traditions demand, but I won’t. He croaked suddenly. Only yesterday in Kyiv, he gleefully threatened all Russians with death and called for terrible sanctions against us. He has flown back to America and croaked—all of a sudden.”
Solovyov re-emphasized, “He came back from Kyiv and suddenly croaked, I don’t know why.”
Simonyan immediately chimed in to say, “This is why.” Solovyov went on to claim that the South Carolina senator may have “asked Zelenskyy for more money” or perhaps “he knew too much.”
Like a broken record, Solovyov injected the phrase “he croaked” throughout his diatribe about Graham. Simonyan didn’t even attempt to conceal her smirk.
With notable irritation, Solovyov added, “It’s too bad that it was just him.”
Simonyan made no mention of her earlier death threats against Graham, though she made clear she believes there may be more unexpected deaths to come.
“As for the future, it’s murky… It’s hard to predict who is the next in line to die after Lindsey Graham,” she said.
She concluded her speech by addressing Europeans who, like Graham, are determined to help Ukraine achieve victory over Russia’s invading forces. Simonyan recited verses from the poem “The Scythians” by Aleksandr Blok, dedicating them “to the old world.” She exclaimed,
“We love raw flesh, its color and its stench.
We love to taste it in our hungry maws.
Are we to blame then, if your ribs should crunch,
Fragile between our massive, gentle paws?”
