US isn't yet ready to recognize Russia as sponsor of terrorism - expert Maiorov

This is reported by Glavkom with reference to the expert of the Center for Strategic Communications and Information Security Maksym Maiorov.

“The United States will then be forced to impose secondary sanctions on states that cooperate with Russia as before, for example, on Israel. And official Washington is not yet ready for this,” Maiorov explained. 

At the same time many experts consider the only way to really complicate the existence of the Russian Federation is to recognize it as a sponsor terrorism.

On August 2, the representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova, said that such decisions could lead to a break in diplomatic relations with the United States.

“Countries sponsoring terrorism is a purely American list, to which they include states based on their criteria. They do not have another list "states-terrorists", no one has such a list. That is, under the "states-sponsors" the USA has a procedure, a list and sanctions. That is why it is necessary to push Russia there. And the declarations of other states about the "terrorist state" are political, not legal.  They do not have a prescribed standard response and behavior protocol,” Maiorov said.

The inclusion of Russia in the list of states sponsoring terrorism in the US has been discussed since 2018, due to the Skripal case. In 2020 - after publications in the media about the payment of the Russian Federation to fighters of the Taliban movement for attacks on American soldiers in Afghanistan. After the poisoning of Alexei Navalny, new demands were made to recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism.

In 2021, some senators proposed to recognize the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism due to its support for the so-called Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Republics. In April of this year, Zelensky directly asked Joe Biden to make this decision because of a full-scale attack on Ukraine. In May, the US Senate registered a resolution with an appeal to the State Department to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. The direct reason for this is the accusation of war crimes committed by the Russian military in Ukraine.

• On May 10, the Seimas of Lithuania voted unanimously to recognize Russia as a terrorist state. And in June, the Czech Republic announced its readiness to adopt a resolution recognizing Russia as a terrorist state in both houses of parliament.

• The President of Ukraine also proposed to introduce the concept of "terrorist state" and to recognize the criminal actions of the Russian army as a terrorist act against the population of Ukraine.

• The recognition of Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism will have legal consequences in war. The head of the President's Office called for an immediate decision.

• Yermak emphasized that Ukraine will continue to insist on the recognition of the Russian Federation as a state sponsor of terrorism, and the continuation and strengthening of armed support from the US is absolutely necessary.