In a first-of-its kind arrangement, the editors of Russian news site Pravda have tentatively agreed to publish a column by Sen. John McCain that will attack the leadership of Russian President Vladimir Putin. The agreement comes one day after Putin criticized the United States in a widely-read column in The New York Times. 
 
 "If John McCain wants to write something for us, he is welcome," Dmitry Sudakov, the English editor of Pravda tells The Cable. "Mr. McCain has been an active anti-Russian politician for many years already. We have been critical of his stance on Russia and international politics in our materials, but we would be only pleased to publish a story penned by such a prominent politician as John McCain." 
 
 When The Cable reached the senator's office with the offer, McCain's communications director Brian Rogers responded within minutes. "On the record: Senator McCain would be glad to write something for Pravda, so we'll be reaching out to Dmitry with a submission." 
 
 The beginning of this surprising arrangement all started last night when your trusty Cable guy watched an interview between McCain and CNN's Jake Tapper about Putin's latest op-ed. In a nod to Russia's restrictive press policies (Russia is ranked 148th out of 179 in the world for respecting press freedoms by Reporters Without Borders), McCain joked "I would love to have a commentary in Pravda." 
 
 After The Cable sent this transcript to Pravda, Sudakov bristled at the idea that his news site would be prevented from publishing a column by McCain. 
 
 "I am convinced that we would not agree on many things that he would have to say in his column, but an article like that would obviously be published in English and then translated into Russian so that all our Russian readers could read what Mr. McCain has to say," he said. "In addition... we already have a U.S. politician who acts as a regular contributor to Pravda.Ru - Paul Craig Roberts, a former Senator, a man who used to be in the team of Ronald Reagan. So I believe that Mr. McCain is not aware of the real state of affairs in my country when he expresses his judgements of freedom of speech." 
 
 Rogers chuckled at the suggestion that Paul Craig Roberts is a former senator (he's actually a former assistant secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during the Reagan administration) and pointed to some of his anti-establishment views posted on his personal site. "He was never a senator," said Rogers. "If you look on his website, it's all pro-Putin stuff and how the United States is a criminal regime." 
 
 When asked what the senator might write about, Rogers said the senator would have no trouble coming up with something for next week. "This is obviously a target-rich environment," he said. "There are a lot of issues that I'm sure Sen. McCain would want to address: Democracy and human rights in Russia and certainly the Putin regime's aiding and abetting of the Syrian regime, which has killed 100,000 of its own people." 
 
 It's worth noting that this is not your grandfather's Pravda. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Pravda was temporarily shut down and a number of its journalists migrated to Pravda.ru, which is distinctly anti-Western but no longer an official organ for the Communist Party. 
 
 Regardless, The Cable welcomes this next chapter in U.S-Russian relations and is happy to have played a small part in bringing it about. (And look: McCain didn't even need to hire a fancy public relations firm.) 
 
 Update: The McCain camp e-mails Pravda and promises a submission by Wednesday at the latest. The story was also updated to reflect that Pravda.ru does not have a print edition: ||||| Sen. John McCain got his wish when his op-ed against Russian President Vladimir Putin was published in Russia news outlet Pravda. The only problem — it may have been the wrong Pravda. 
 
 The Arizona Republican published his anti-Putin piece on Pravda.ru on Thursday, an English and Russian news website that was founded in 1999. 
 
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 reset McCain: 'Skeptical' of Russia plan 
 
 But McCain said he was hoping to publish in the Communist newspaper Pravda, meaning “truth” in Russian, which was founded in 1912. That publication, after being banned when the Soviet Union collapsed, was rekindled and is still circulated by today’s Russian Communist Party. 
 
 Pravda.ru and the paper are unrelated media outlets, except for the name. 
 
 (Also on POLITICO: In Pravda, McCain slams Putin) 
 
 On Thursday, a spokesman for McCain said the senator submitted the op-ed to both publications and hoped both would run it. He denied Pravda.ru is the “wrong” Pravda. 
 
 On Sunday, McCain told reporters that the Communist one was the Pravda he hoped would publish his piece, but that publication’s editor wrote in a statement that the publication would not accept McCain’s op-ed unless it aligned with their position supporting the Syrian regime, according to CNN. 
 
 McCain’s critical op-ed on Pravda.ru, titled “Russians deserve better than Putin,” was a response to Putin’s own piece in The New York Times last week criticizing American exceptionalism and arguing against action in Syria. McCain is a longtime critic of Putin and an active supporter of U.S. intervention on behalf of the Syrian opposition. 
 
 (PHOTOS: John McCain visits Syria) 
 
 For its part, the chairman of Pravda.ru’s board of directors wrote a column on Monday defending Pravda.ru as one of two legitimate successors of the original Pravda, saying his site is “the absolute leader among Russian English-language media, with the exception of Russia Today.” 
 
 The chairman said they were happy to publish McCain’s piece, even if it goes against the publication’s position on Syria, to promote discussion of the complicated issue, and that they agreed to do so after being approached by Foreign Policy with McCain’s public statement that he wanted to write in Pravda.
– Vladimir Putin got to sound off against the US in a New York Times op-ep this week, so now a Russian news site is offering the same opportunity to John McCain. Joking about Putin's op-ed on CNN last week, McCain said, "I would love to have a commentary in Pravda." Foreign Policy asked Pravda for comment. "If John McCain wants to write something for us, he is welcome," says the English editor of the website Pravda.ru. "Mr. McCain has been an active anti-Russian politician for many years already. ... But we would be only pleased to publish a story penned by such a prominent politician as John McCain." McCain says he really would like to write something for Pravda, and will get in touch. But Slate suggests that McCain should actually check out the news outlet he has agreed to write for. There are two Pravdas: Pravda the newspaper, a Soviet-era relic which McCain probably remembers from the Cold War; and Pravda.ru, a tabloid news site that features headlines like "Russian children get gay love books from the West," and "SOS signal from UFO sows panic in Siberia." So ... not quite Russia's answer to the New York Times after all.