The US
Senate unanimously approved a resolution calling on the State Department to
recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism for actions in Chechnya,
Georgia, Syria, and Ukraine that "led to the deaths of countless innocent
men, women, and children." The New York Times writes about it.
It is
emphasized that the authority to identify a state sponsor of terror rests with
the US State Department.
However, the Senate's passage of the resolution puts even more pressure on Biden’s administration to add Russia to the list of state sponsors of terrorism, which includes Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria.
"The armed forces of the Russian Federation carried out numerous extrajudicial executions of innocent civilians and tried to cover up their atrocities with mass burials throughout Ukraine", the Senate resolution says.
Its content echoes what
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky claimed during the war: Russian forces
committed acts of brutality against civilians, including rape, murder, and
torture, which constitute terrorism.
