House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has demanded that Secretary of State Antony Blinken designates Russia as a “state sponsor of terrorism” or else Congress would do it according to a Politico report.
The report cites two sources who confimed that the warning was made during a call between the two earlier this week.
Blinkin, as secretary of state, has the authority to designate a state as a sponsor of terror, and Congress could also do it by passing legislation.
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ZeroHedge reports: The designation is meant to expand sanctions on the targeted nation. Currently, only Cuba, Iran, North Korea, and Syria are designated by the US as state sponsors of terror. Cuba’s designation was lifted by the Obama administration but was reimposed during the final days of the Trump administration.
Since the US has already hit Russia with so many sanctions, the designation would have little impact on Moscow. But designating a state as a sponsor of terrorism opens up sanctions on other countries that do business with them.
The move would also signal that US-Russia relations won’t be repaired for years to come as such designations are usually difficult to reverse.
Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) are pushing for the designation and introduced a resolution that would call on Blinken to enact it. The two senators traveled to Kyiv earlier this month and met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to discuss the idea.
While in Kyiv, the two senators expressed support for a “hand-to-hand insurgency” in Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
