US Senators Introduce Bipartisan Bill to Declare Russia a ‘State Sponsor of Terrorism’
Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) on Wednesday introduced a bi-partisan bill that would designate the Russian government as a “state sponsor of terrorism.”
It comes the same day that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described Russia as a “terrorist state” after Russian forces fired a missile on the Karachunivske reservoir, which broke and flooded the president’s home city, Kryvyi Rih, forcing evacuations.
“Putin has crossed every line of civilized norms during the war in Ukraine and years before,” Graham said in a statement.
“He has engaged in state-sponsored assassinations, the Wagner group supported by Russia terrorizes the world, and the war crimes being committed in Ukraine on a daily basis shock the conscious,” he continued, referring to the private Russian military, Wagner group, whose mercenaries have been accused of war crimes in Africa and Ukraine.
President Vladimir Putin has always denied that the Wagner group is controlled by the Kremlin.
A truck of the Russian private military group Wagner in the looted Central African Army (FACA) base of Bangassou, which was attacked on Jan. 3, 2021, by rebels. Photo taken on Feb. 3, 2021. (Alexis Huguet/AFP via Getty Images)
The U.S. senators said the “Russia is a State Sponsor of Terrorism Act” (pdf) would drastically curtail defense and technology exports to Russia, significantly reduce foreign assistance, and impose additional financial restrictions on Russia.
It would also eliminate Russia’s sovereign immunity in the eyes of U.S. courts, opening Russia’s government to lawsuits and other civil claims from victims of its state-sponsored terrorism, according to a news release.
‘Game Changer’
Graham said that Ukrainians have been asking for Russia to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism and that if enacted the bill will “be a game changer in how we deal with terrorists worldwide.”
“If Putin’s regime is not a State
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