Congresswoman Abigail Spanberger (D-VA-07), Congressman Ted Lieu (D-CA-33), and Congressman Tom Malinowski (D-NJ-07) are leading members of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee in urging the State Department to assess whether Russia meets the requirements to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The letter, signed by 10 members, urges U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken to evaluate whether Russia’s war crimes in Ukraine and support of U.S.-designated terrorist groups meets the threshold for state-sponsored terrorism. If they do, the Members argue, the United States would then have even more expansive abilities to hold Russia accountable.
“As Russia conducts a brutal war and commits widespread war crimes against the people of Ukraine, Vladimir Putin is leveraging another tool to achieve his political objectives: non-state groups engaged in terrorist activity,” the lawmakers wrote. “As the global community seeks to support Ukraine and ensure Putin’s gambit fails, we must pursue every avenue to impose costs on his regime. Given the Russian government’s support for non-state terrorist groups prior to and during the Ukraine conflict, we respectfully request that the State Department deliver an assessment to us on whether Russia meets the requirements to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
The lawmakers continued, “The free world has been shocked at Russia’s violent, barbarous acts against civilians. But we cannot ignore its use of non-state actors engaged in terrorist activity as a separate tool to achieve Putin’s political objectives. We urge you to promptly consider all evidence for a potential designation of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.”
Click here to read the full letter.
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