John McCain To Write For Pravda

Senator will respond to Putin's op-ed with a piece in the Russian newspaper thanks to some crafty matchmaking by an American magazine

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AMEL PAIN / EPA

U.S. Senator John McCain, left, with Senator Lindsey Graham in Cairo on Aug. 6, 2013

Not to be outdone by Putin, Senator John McCain agreed Friday to write a column in a Russian newspaper responding to the Russian president’s widely circulated New York Times Op-Ed. The agreement was made after a some investigative matchmaking on the part of Foreign Policy magazine.

It all started when  John McCain joked that he would “love to have a commentary in Pravda” in a Thursday night CNN interview.  John Hudson, a reporter at Foreign Policy, decided to play yenta.

MORE: Why Vladimir Putin Thinks We’re Out To Get Him

Hudson called Dmitri Sudakov, English editor of Pravda, and asked whether his newspaper would publish something by McCain. Sudakov, who acknowledged the Arizona Republican’s anti-Russian stance, said he would be “pleased to publish a story penned by such a prominent politician as John McCain.”

When Hudson contacted McCain’s office with the news, communications director Brian Rogers responded within minutes saying that the Senator would welcome the opportunity to further the international dialogue. “There are a lot of issues that I’m sure Sen. McCain would want to address,” Rogers said. “Democracy and human rights in Russia and certainly the Putin regime’s aiding and abetting of the Syrian regime, which has killed 100,000 of its own people.”

[Foreign Policy]