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Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky has directly called on President Biden to designate Russia as a sponsor of terrorism, one of the most powerful and far-reaching sanctions in the US arsenal.
Zelensky’s request, which has not been announced so far, came during a recent telephone conversation with Biden, which focused on the West’s multilateral response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, according to people familiar with the conversation.
Biden did not commit to specific actions during the conversation, the people said, speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive dialogue between the two leaders. The president told his Ukrainian counterpart that he was ready to examine a number of proposals to put more pressure on Moscow, they added.
Even during the Cold War, Washington refrained from defining the Soviet Union in this way, despite Moscow’s support for groups considered terrorist actors in the 1970s and 1980s.
Such a measure could have a number of effects, including imposing economic sanctions on dozens of other countries that continue to do business with Russia, freezing Moscow’s assets in the United States, including real estate, and banning various exports that have both commercial, and military purposes.
Zelensky’s proposal comes as Washington seeks to maintain its delicate network of alliances amid rising energy prices and rising inflation, fueled by an unprecedented set of sanctions against Russia.
“Adding Russia to the list of state sponsors of terrorism would be the option for a nuclear economy,” Jason Blazakis, a former State Department official and terrorism expert, wrote in a recent essay.
Since 1979, Republican and Democratic administrations have used the term terrorism sparingly, targeting only a handful of pariah states where the United States has limited interests.
The label, which requires a statement from the Secretary of State, can be applied to any country that has “repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism,” according to a State Department report. The list currently includes four countries: North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria.
Some Republican hawks in Congress have urged the Biden administration to add Russia to the list. But administration officials were non-committal, saying only that they would consider the proposal, said a congressman familiar with the talks.
When Secretary of State Anthony Blinken was asked directly about US support for the appointment of a press conference last month, he said: “We are and will look into everything.
“Our focus is primarily to do everything we can to help end this war quickly, to stop the suffering of the Ukrainian people,” he told reporters at the State Department.
Zelensky’s strong support for the measure adds momentum to the pressure as world leaders seek to support the Ukrainian president through increasingly powerful military, economic and diplomatic means.
But some of Zelensky’s demands have been rejected in the past, including his demand for MiG-29 fighter jets, which some NATO countries say risk a wider Russian war in Europe. He also asked European countries to close their ports to Russian ships and stop buying Russian oil, which they continue to do.
In essence, identifying Russia may be easier than for the nations currently on the list. Cuba was added by the Trump administration in January 2021, shortly before Biden took office, for refusing to extradite an American convicted of killing a New Jersey serviceman in 1973 and for supporting the Colombian guerrilla movement. . Opponents have criticized the move as using the label for political purposes.
In contrast, the killing of Russian civilians in Ukraine and Syria, its alleged killings and attempted killings of dissidents and spies in foreign countries, and its support for separatists in Ukraine accused by the United States of murder, rape and torture, could more easily fit into the state Department Criteria.
“This proposal is not without merit,” said Ariel Cohen, a senior fellow at the Eurasian Center of the Atlantic Council. The question is, economically, what are the consequences?
The decision to add a state is important because once on the list, states are rarely removed. Such a move usually requires an extraordinary event such as a regime change – which led to the removal of Iraq from the list in 2004 after the removal of Saddam Hussein – or a significant turnaround in US policy.
Cuba was removed from the list during the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Havana, a move that was canceled by the Trump administration. Sudan was removed from the list after 27 years as part of the Trump administration’s efforts to reward countries that normalize relations with Israel.
“The list has no room for improvement other than perfection,” wrote Daniel Bayman in an analysis of the Brookings Institution measure, “so that countries that have drastically reduced their support [for terrorism] but maintaining some residual connections is not helpful. “
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