Russia Today Editor: I Forbid Myself to ‘Gloat’ Over John McCain’s Death

Margarita Simonyan, the editor in chief of the Kremlin-backed news organization Russia Today, appeared to slight the late Sen. John McCain in a gloating Monday tweet. “I am of course a bad Christian, because I can't love my enemies. I can’t even sympathize,” Simonyan wrote, according to a translation tweeted by Washington Post Moscow reporter Amie Ferris-Rotman. “I can only strongly forbid myself to gloat.” McCain, who passed away Saturday night, long held a contentious relationship with Vladimir Putin’s Kremlin: He backed pro-Western leaders in Georgia and Ukraine, and advocated for harsh economic sanctions against Moscow after the annexation of Crimea and its suspected involvement in the 2014 downing of a passenger jet over Ukraine. McCain was also a vocal critic of Russia Today, writing in a 2017 statement that “[Russia Today]’s propagandists debunk the truth, spread lies, and seek to undermine democratic governments in order to further Vladimir Putin’s agenda.”