Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana has made sharp remarks about Russian President Vladimir Putin while commenting on US involvement in resolving the Ukrainian conflict, reports infohub.kz.
On NBC News' "Meet the Press," Kennedy criticized the Republican leadership on several issues, including the Trump administration's actions in the peace process for Ukraine. In his view, Washington should take a different approach to the Russian leader.
"This guy is a pirate. He has blood under his fingernails. He doesn't care about all these nice words. You won't get anywhere by sucking up to him. You need to show that you're serious," the senator said.
Kennedy also noted that last week the US House of Representatives failed to pass a sanctions bill against Russia that was approved by the Senate in August. "We should have passed that Russia sanctions bill, and we'll have another chance to do it. We need to help Ukraine and Europe. They're doing pretty well themselves, but we can provide them with intelligence," he added.
The network notes that Kennedy's comments came amid recent meetings of President Donald Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff with Putin and Zelensky. "We've got Putin in a corner. We're strangling him to death. We're strangling him. We need to strangle him to death. That's the only thing he understands," Kennedy said.
At the same time, the senator did not deny the importance and usefulness of negotiations, but expressed doubt that US representatives could reach an agreement on Ukraine.
A clip of Kennedy's speech is being widely shared on social media.
Recall that over the past weekend, Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner visited Moscow and held talks with Russian leader Vladimir Putin. They then met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. After that, Witkoff spoke about possible negotiations between Zelensky, Putin, and Trump.