Senators introduce bill designating Russia ‘state sponsor of terrorism’

Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday introduced a bill that would designate Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism,” just a few months after the Senate Judiciary Committee members called on the Biden administration to do so.  

The bipartisan duo is seeking to make Russia the fifth addition to the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, joining North Korea, Iran, Syria and Cuba. 

The designation would eliminate Russia’s sovereign immunity before U.S. courts and reduce foreign assistance and exports to the country, according to a release.  

The newly introduced Russia Is a State Sponsor of Terrorism Act follows a resolution passed by the Senate in late July that called on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to impose the designation on Russia. 

“If [Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s regime is not a State Sponsor of Terrorism after all this, then the designation is meaningless,” Graham said in a statement announcing the bill. 

But Biden earlier this month said he did not think Russia should get the designation.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said in a recent briefing that the president thinks the move “is not the most effective or strongest path forward … to hold Russia accountable” and “could have unintended consequences to Ukraine and the world.”

The designation could curb the U.S.’s ability to deliver aid to Ukraine and facilitate food exports from the country, jeopardizing a recent deal to allow some exports through the blockaded Black Sea, Jean-Pierre said.

The senators introduced their new bill just a week after Biden dismissed their resolution.

“Russia has more than earned the right to be among the club of pariah nations,” Blumenthal said in a statement. 

The bill comes as Ukraine intensifies its counteroffensive, pushing Russian forces to retreat to the border in some places. 

“What has been revealed in Ukraine’s success on the battlefield is not only its military prowess and Russia’s weakness, but also Putin’s reliance on brutal atrocities, genocide and war crimes against the people of Ukraine,” Blumenthal added. 

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has also pressed for Russia to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.  

Blumenthal and Graham met with Zelensky in Kyiv earlier this year to promote the push, and the Ukrainian president has also called on the United Nations to make its own designation. 

“There is still no official recognition of Russia as a state – sponsor of terrorism. Citizens of the terrorist state can still travel to Europe for vacation or shopping, they can still get European visas, and no one knows whether there are torturers or murderers among them who have just returned from the occupied territory of Ukraine,” Zelensky said in a recent address. 

“We still need to strengthen our cooperation in order to overcome Russian terror. Russia must be designated a terrorist state,” he said.