US democracy is 'limping', say the Russians

Amid surprise and condemnation of violence at Capitol Hill in early hours of Thursday (Indian time), America is faking a lot of flak for the unprecedented events. Latest in the list are USA's cold war nemesis Russia. On Thursday, a high ranking Russian official said that American democracy was "limping on both feet".

"The losing side has more than enough grounds to accuse the winner of falsifications -- it is clear that American democracy is limping on both feet," Konstantin Kosachyov, the chair of the Russian upper house's foreign affairs committee, said in a post on Facebook.

USA always prides itself for being a 'beacon of democracy' and have advocated democratic setup in countries abroad, the reputation seems to have taken a sound being after the violence at Capitol Hill.

"The celebration of democracy has ended. It has, unfortunately, hit rock bottom, and I say this without a hint of gloating," said Kosachyov

"America no longer charts the course and so has lost all right to set it. And, even more so, to impose it on others," he added.

Moscow has long bristled at US criticism of the state of Russian democracy under President Vladimir Putin, accusing Washington of hypocrisy and condescension.

The Kremlin has been accused of fostering those divisions with a campaign of interference and disinformation, including alleged attempts to disrupt the 2016 election in Trump's favour that prompted an FBI investigation.

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There was no immediate reaction from Russian foreign ministry following events at Capitol Hill but pro-Kremiln lawmakers jumped at the unrest.

"The United States certainly cannot now impose electoral standards on other countries and claim to be the world's 'beacon of democracy'," the foreign affairs chief in the lower house, Leonid Slutsky, told Russian news agencies.

He said Washington was suffering after having promoted "colour revolutions" around the world, like anti-Moscow uprisings in Ukraine and Georgia and the recent protests in Belarus.

"The boomerang of the colour revolutions is turning back on the United States," Slutsky said. "All this threatens to turn into a crisis in the American system of power."

Others appeared to use the events to justify Moscow's domestic policies. 

Anton Gorelkin, a lawmaker on the lower house telecommunications committee, praised Twitter and Facebook for suspending Trump's accounts, saying it showed the need to better control social media.

"Social networks must work under strict rules within a legal framework. Because absolute freedom of information is becoming a weapon in the hands of extremists," he said in a post on his Telegram channel.

(With AFP inputs)