Republicans who support Vladimir Putin over the Russian invasion of Ukraine are “lonely voices” in the party, Mitch McConnell said.

But the Senate minority leader dodged an invitation to say such Republicans should be ejected from the party or at least face disciplinary measures.

Support or admiration for Putin flecks the Republican party.

Donald Trump, the former president who maintains a firm grip on the GOP, has called the Russian leader “smart” while condemning the war in Ukraine.

Madison Cawthorn and Marjorie Taylor Greene, far-right members of Congress and enthusiastic Trump supporters, have made controversial comments of their own.

Cawthorn has called Volodymyr Zelinskiy, the president of Ukraine who addressed Congress last week, a “thug” and his government “incredibly evil”. Greene has said the US should not support Ukraine financially in a war it cannot win.

Such rhetoric echoes that from influential voices on the US right prominently including Tucker Carlson, a primetime Fox News host reportedly praised by Russian government sources.

On CBS’s Face the Nation on Sunday, McConnell was asked about what the anti-Trump congresswoman Liz Cheney has called the “Putin wing of the Republican party”.

The Kentucky senator was asked: “Is there any room in the Republican party for this rhetoric and why isn’t there more discipline?

“Well, there’s some lonely voices out there that are in a different place,” McConnell said.

“But looking at Senate Republicans, I can tell you that I would have had I been the majority leader put this Ukraine supplemental [aid package] up by itself” instead of being included in a government funding bill.

“I think virtually every one of my members would have voted for it,” McConnell added. “The vast majority of the Republican party writ large, both in the Congress and across the country, are totally behind the Ukrainians and urging [Joe Biden] to take these steps quicker. To be bolder.

“So, there may be a few lonely voices off the side. I wouldn’t pay much attention to them.”

Some of McConnell’s fellow Republican leaders, it seems, do not. On Friday Kevin McCarthy, the minority leader in the House, was asked about Cawthorn’s remark about Zelinskiy.

“Madison is wrong,” McCarthy said. “If there’s any thug in this world, it’s Putin.”

McCarthy also said he supported Cawthorn’s bid for re-election. He is not supporting Cheney in the same endeavor. After all, the Wyoming congresswoman faced rare party discipline, losing a leadership role, after she joined the January 6 committee, investigating the attack on Congress by Trump supporters.

McCarthy has endorsed Cheney’s opponent.