Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked Joe Biden directly to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism during a recent telephone conversation with the US president, the Washington Post reports, citing persons said to be familiar with the matter.
Biden reportedly expressed willingness to ‘explore a range of proposals’ to pressure Moscow, but did not offer a commitment either way on the ‘state sponsor of terror’ idea.
Just four countries remain on the US ‘terror’ listing today, with Iraq, Libya, the former South Yemen and Sudan removed from the listing between 1990 and 2020 over a range of pretexts.
The ‘state sponsor of terrorism’ designation requires Washington to maintain a range of draconian measures against targeted nations, including export controls on so-called dual-use items – i.e. products which can be used in military applications or to “support terrorism.” It also bans all foreign aid and any duty-free preferences for imports, exclusion from visa waiver programmes, and secondary restrictions against nations that continue to do business with the affected country.
The designation also lifts diplomatic immunity on any frozen national wealth or property targeted nations have in the United States, deeming them fair game for seizure by the families of the victims of terrorism in US civil courts, regardless of whether the country in question had anything to do with an act of terror. In 2018, for example, a US judge ordered Iran to pay $6 billion to the victims of 9/11, notwithstanding the Islamic Republic’s decades-long battle against al-Qaeda,* and the fact that Tehran had nothing to do with the terror attacks.
Russia shot past Iran and its 3,600+ Western sanctions to become the world’s most sanctioned nation in February over its recognition of the Donbass republics and its ongoing military operation in Ukraine. The Russian state, companies, tycoons, and other entities now have a grand total of 9,655 restrictions against them, more than Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela and Myanmar combined.
Emergency fiscal and macroeconomic stabilization measures taken by Russia appear to have partially blunted the impact of Western sanctions so far, with the ruble stabilizing and Russia’s ties with China and other BRICS countries seemingly unaffected by the draconian restrictions. At the same time, the US and its European allies have faced growing pressure from their respective publics over accelerating inflation and sky-high energy costs, with Biden calling soaring gas prices “Putin’s price hike,” while officials in Germany have encouraged Germans to bundle up, ride bicycles more and wash less in the face of an expected shortfall of cheap and reliable Russian energy.
* A terrorist group outlawed in Russia and many other countries.