MOSCOW, May 29. /TASS/. Reports by Reuters that remarks by US Senator Lindsey Graham (Republican, South Carolina) made during a meeting with Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky may have been taken out of context represent clumsy, shameless excuses, a statement by the Russian Foreign Ministry made public on Monday said.

"‘It turns out,’ that's not what Senator Graham said or how he said it. Just like with similar cannibalistic musings by former US President George W. Bush, clumsy, shameful excuses are being bandied about: so, allegedly, the senator’s words were taken out of context, there was some ‘editing’ and so on. Who would have doubted that the politician himself and his spin doctors, such as the top Anglo-Saxon media outlets and news agencies, would, as they say, ‘play dumb.’ What’s next? They will tell us that Lindsey Graham is a product of [artificial intelligence] and doesn’t actually exist?" the Foreign Ministry asked rhetorically. It stressed that this "attempt is doomed to fail." "It is already impossible to clean oneself [and one’s reputation] from the stain of such remarks, even if they were uttered separately," the ministry added.

Earlier, at a meeting in Kiev with Zelensky, Graham seemingly linked the fact that "Russians are dying" in the Ukrainian conflict with US aid for Ukraine, saying it is "the best money we’ve ever spent."

The Russian Foreign Ministry pointed out that this was hardly the first instance of such hateful remarks and that "the senator is not alone." "The Nazi philosophy of hatred toward Russians is actually what unites the Kiev regime and its American handlers," the ministry emphasized.

The ministry also stated that widespread popular outrage has forced the Western propaganda machine "with its cogs, such as Reuters and the BBC, who led the campaign to whitewash the [words of the] lawmaker, to initiate a crisis management approach and attempt to reverse the situation." "This entire story with cowardly excuses and ludicrous attempts to absolve Lindsey Graham is yet another blow to the already faded reputation of Reuters and the BBC, which were left to worm their way of out the mess on behalf of both Washington and Kiev. This is not journalism, but PR agencies carrying out an assignment for the ‘collective West,’" the Russian Foreign Ministry concluded.

Earlier, Reuters, having examined a complete recording of Graham’s meeting with the Ukrainian leader, said that the remarks by the US senator may have been taken out of context.