A Russian official has lashed out against U.S. Senator John McCain for making critical comments about top Kremlin leaders.

A Russian official has lashed out against U.S. Senator John McCain for making critical comments about top Kremlin leaders.
President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told the state-run TASS news agency about McCain, “Thank God, this gentleman is not the one who shapes or implements US foreign policy.” 
Peskov also reportedly spoke of what he called McCain’s “maniacal hatred towards our country.” The spokesman said, in part, “...his statements have gone way over the line of decency and departed from a tone appropriate for a statesmen of such a country as the United States.” 
These criticisms apparently came in response to McCain’s interview on Fox News Sunday where he said the U.S. investigation into ties between Russia and associates of President Trump is “reaching a point where it's a Watergate size and scale.” 
And when host Chris Wallace asked him about Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s recent visit to the Oval Office, the U.S. lawmaker said, “Mr. Lavrov is the stooge of a thug and a murderer who used Russian precision weapons to strike hospitals in Aleppo, who’s committed human rights violations all over the place, as -- invade Ukraine, has taken Crimea, has acted in the most thuggish and outrageous fashion and he had no business in the Oval Office.” 
McCain then said, “If there’s a president to Putin engagement in a meeting, I think that’s under the right circumstances, that might be OK, but not this stooge Lavrov, who is nothing but a propagandist.” 
His comments also prompted a dismissive response from Russian Foreign Affairs Committee chair Konstantin Kosachev; Sputnik News quotes him as saying, “I think that commenting on McCain's words is bad manners for any sensible people.”