The heads of the foreign affairs committees in both Russia’s upper and lower houses of parliament chalked up Michael Flynn’s resignation to a dark campaign of Russophobia in Washington, and said it would undermine relations between the White House and the Kremlin.

Konstantin Kosachev of the upper house wrote in a post on Facebook that readiness for dialogue with Moscow was now seen in Washington as a “thoughtcrime,” a reference to the George Orwell’s dystopian novel 1984…

“Flynn was ‘pushed out’ not because of his mistake, but because of the unfolding campaign of aggression, ‘Russian for the Exit!’ shout the newspapers. Paranoia and a witch hunt,” tweeted Alexei Pushkov, a senator in the upper house, referring to the New York Daily News headline.

In a separate tweet he wrote: “The mission isn’t Flynn, it’s relations with Russia.”