Putin says he likes John McCain despite senator calling him a 'butcher' and 'thug'

Vladimir Putin has said that he likes Senator John McCain – who has called the Russian president “a butcher” and a “thug” – but claimed that the congressman is living in the past.

In the latest teaser for the soon-to-be-released documentary of Mr Putin by film director Oliver Stone, Mr Putin said he wasn’t joking after he commented that he likes Mr McCain “to a certain extent”.

“I like him because of his patriotism, and I can relate to his consistency in fighting for the interests of his own country,” Mr Putin said of the former US Navy aviator who spent more than five years as a prisoner of war.

“People with such convictions like [McCain] you mentioned, they still live in the Old World,” he added. “And they’re reluctant to look into the future, they are unwilling to recognise how fast the world is changing.”

Mr Putin seemed to suggest that the US and Russia should focus on common threats, such as international terrorism, environmental deterioration and global poverty.

“After all, we’ve piled up so many nuclear weapons that it has become a threat to the whole world as well,” Mr Putin said. “And it would be good for us to give it some thought. There are many issues to address.”

Mr Stone’s documentary “The Putin Interviews” has already been criticised by reviewers. In the four-part series, created from two years of conversations between Mr Stone and Mr Putin, the Russian leader “lies by omission and pushes conspiracy theories”, Foreign Policy magazine wrote.

Speaking on the Senate floor in February, Mr McCain, one of the Kremlin’s fiercest critics since the Cold War, labelled Mr Putin as “a killer”.

“There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Putin’s Russia,” Mr McCain said.

Washington is currently still dealing with the fallout from Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which former FBI Director James Comey testified about this week, before the Senate Intelligence Committee.

“The Russians interfered in our election during the 2016 cycle,” he said. “They did it with purpose. They did it with sophistication. They did it with overwhelming technical efforts.”

Mr Putin has continued to deny any state role in the hacking, but suggested earlier this month that “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in the cyberattacks.

Mr McCain, a Republican, and Democratic Senator Ben Cardin, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, have introduced legislation that would penalise Russia for its election interference, as well as for ongoing conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.

Senate Democrats are also pushing for broader sanctions that would make it more difficult for President Donald Trump to lift existing sanctions on Russia.

Congressional committees and a special prosecutor are currently investigating whether Trump campaign advisers colluded with the Russian government to influence the election.