US resists Zelensky’s calls to recognise Russia as terrorist state

Addressing the United Nations Security Council, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has called on the world, and specifically the US State Department, to recognise Russia as a terrorist state for the way its forces have attacked civilian targets. He said it would not be just a political gesture but an “effective defence of the free world.”

Despite Zelensky’s repeated calls, and though the US Senate has passed a non-binding resolution urging Secretary of State Antony Blinken to label Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, he has stopped short of doing so, arguing that any decision must be based on existing legal definitions, while also suggesting that the point was moot because Russia was already under many sanctions.

“The costs that have been imposed on Russia by us and by other countries are absolutely in line with the consequences that would follow from designation as a state sponsor of terrorism, so the practical effects of what we’re doing are the same,” Blinken said at a news conference.

According to legal experts, Blinken has ‘wide latitude’ to impose various designations, but only under specific circumstances.

Brian Finucane, a senior adviser at the International Crisis Group which recently worked on military and counter-terrorism issues at the State Department, said: “For diplomacy, it’s not practical to designate a state with which the US has a multifaceted relationship,”

In the Trump administration, former Secretary of State Mike Pompeo labeled Cuba a “state sponsor of terrorism,” a step that the Biden administration has yet to reverse, despite skepticism about its justification.