Quote:Even in death, John McCain has one final burn planned for two of his biggest foes — Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump — at a moment when much of the world will be watching.

The Republican senator from Arizona, who planned his own funeral, chose Russian dissident Vladimir Kara-Murza as one of the dignitaries to carry his coffin to the front of the Washington National Cathedral at Saturday’s memorial service.

The funeral cortege, or procession, is often one of the most-watched parts of any televised memorial service, and McCain appears to have chosen his pallbearers with that in mind. He picked some, such as former Democratic Vice President Joe Biden and former Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), to represent his time as an Arizona congressman, senator and presidential contender. Others, such as former Defense Secretary William Cohen, honor his service as a naval aviator and prisoner of war, and some are friends, such as the actor Warren Beatty.

The choice of Kara-Murza, who twice suffered organ failure from poisoning, appears aimed at sending a last message to Putin and Trump, who McCain had criticized for sounding too cozy with the Russian leader, amid an investigation into whether the U.S. president’s allies cooperated with Moscow’s efforts to intervene in the 2016 election.

For more than seven years, McCain and Kara-Murza had each other’s backs as each criticized Putin and what they saw as his autocratic tendencies in Russia.

Last April, a mutual friend brought Kara-Murza a personal message from McCain. The senator had been diagnosed nine months earlier with an aggressive form of brain tumor known as a glioblastoma and wanted the young Russian to be a pallbearer at his funeral. Would he agree?

“I was speechless and heartbroken, close to tears at that moment,” Kara-Murza told POLITICO on Tuesday. “I said yes, of course, and that it would be the most heartbreaking honor that anyone could think of.”