Russian ambassador to Italy Sergey Razov filed a lawsuit on Friday against the Italian newspaper La Stampa after an analysis published by them suggested killing Russian President Vladimir Putin as a solution.
The analysis, titled “If killing Putin is the only way out,” suggested that killing the Russian president might be the only option if other options to stop the Russian invasion in Ukraine failed, Reuters reported.
Razov believed that the Italian news outlet was condoning and soliciting a crime to happen from their analysis, according to Reuters.
“Needless to say that this goes against the rules of journalism and morality,” the Russian ambassador told reporters.
But the editor of the Italian newspaper suggested in a video on its website posted in response that the Russian ambassador’s remarks were hypocritical given Russia’s own history. He also explained that the resolution that the analysis came to was that killing Putin could worsen the conflict and that killing tyrants was often not productive.
“We do not take lessons from an illiberal regime that slaughters humanity and truth,” Massimo Giannini said, according to Reuters.
The analysis comes as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) received blowback several times for calling for the assassination of Putin.
During a press conference earlier this month, a reporter asked him if he still stood by his previous comments calling on Putin to be killed.
“Yeah, I hope he will be taken out one way or the other,” Graham said.
“I don’t care how they take him out. I don’t care if we send him to the Hague and try him. I just want him to go. Yes, I’m on record,” Graham added. “And if John McCain were here, he’d be saying the same thing, I think.”
However, Republicans and the White House have distanced themselves from Graham’s rhetoric, saying it was not a good idea.
