House Speaker John Boehner (R- Ohio) has denied a request from Russian diplomats to meet with them to discuss influencing Congress to undercut President Barack Obama’s plans for a military strike on Syria, CNN reported on Wednesday.

Boehner was not the only congressional leader approached by Russian diplomats. A Russian embassy spokesman told CNN that they have reached out to Republican and Democratic members of the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives. Those who accept would meet with members of the Russian parliament sometime next week. It is unclear if anyone has agreed to a meeting.

On Tuesday, Boehner publicly announced that he is backing Obama’s decision.

“I believe my colleagues should support this call for action,” Boehner said after meeting with Obama and key congressional leaders. “We have enemies around the world that need to understand that we’re not going to tolerate this type of behavior.”

On Saturday, Russian President Vladimir Putin said it would be “utter nonsense” for the Syrian government to use chemical weapons, and that he’s convinced the attack was “nothing more than a provocation by those who want to drag other countries into the Syrian conflict.”

Dick Lugar, the former head of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, noted that a meeting with Russian delegates could prove fruitful, in spite of “sour” relations between members of Congress and the Russian parliament.

“I don’t think a delegation from Russia will make any difference in terms of congressional votes,” he said. “But at the same time there may be the possibility that dialogue could lead to other positive things.”

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  • Susan Rice

    “All of this is horrific. All of us as human beings feel terrible when we see the extraordinary loss of life that [has] occurred in Syria,” Rice said. “With chemical weapons, they can kill with indiscriminate abandon. People who are innocent are employed in conflict. It is of a greater magnitude because if terrorists get ahold of those weapons, if other dictators get ahold of those weapons, they can be used on a massive scale.”

  • John Boehner

    “We have enemies around the world that need to understand that we’re not going to tolerate this type of behavior.”

  • John McCain

    “I am against delaying reaction to what is a massacre of a thousand people,” McCain said. “You saw these pictures of these dead children. Come on. This is horrific. We can’t stand by and watch this happen.”

  • John Kerry

    “This is what Assad did to his own people,” Kerry said. If the U.S. allowed “a thug and a murderer like Bashar al-Assad” to get away with gassing his own people, he added, “there will be no end to the test of our resolve and the dangers that will flow from those others who believe that they can do as they will.”

  • Rand Paul

    “I think the Islamic rebels winning is a bad idea for the Christians, and all of a sudden we’ll have another Islamic state where Christians are persecuted,” Paul said.

  • Sarah Palin

    “As I said before, if we are dangerously uncertain of the outcome and are led into war by a Commander-in-chief who can’t recognize that this conflict is pitting Islamic extremists against an authoritarian regime with both sides shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ at each other, then let Allah sort it out,” Palin continued.

  • Ted Cruz

    “We should be focused on defending the United States of America. That’s why young men and women sign up to join the military, not to, as you know, serve as Al Qaeda’s air force.”

  • Barack Obama

    “This attack is an assault on human dignity. It also presents a serious danger to our national security. It risks making a mockery of the global prohibition on the use of chemical weapons. It endangers our friends and our partners along Syria’s borders, including Israel, Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. It could lead to escalating use of chemical weapons, or their proliferation to terrorist groups who would do our people harm.

    “In a world with many dangers, this menace must be confronted.”

  • Bob Menendez

    “Assad has made a calculation now … that he can use chemical weapons, or he believes he can use chemical weapons without consequence,” Menendez said. “And in doing so there is a global message that in fact other state actors and other non-state actors may believe they can do so as well.”