(CNSNews.com) – Latvia’s parliament on Thursday declared Russia a “state sponsor of terrorism,” a step that members of the U.S. Congress – including the U.S. Senate in a unanimously-adopted resolution – are urging the Biden administration to take.
The legislature, known as the Saeima, endorsed the view that Russia’s violence targeting civilians in Ukraine and other countries constitutes terrorism.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba welcomed the move and urged other countries to follow suit. Latvia is the second country to take the step, after Lithuania’s legislature did so last May.
Russia’s foreign ministry called the decision a Russo-phobic move “adopted by the parliament of a country whose authorities openly glorify Nazism,” and said Latvia was playing the part of “a pawn in the hands of its overseas masters.”
The measure adopted in Riga states that Russia uses suffering and intimidation in a bid to demoralize the Ukrainian people and paralyze the country’s ability to defend itself.
It calls on transatlantic allies and partners to ratchet up sanctions against Russia and its ally and abettor, Belarus, boost military and other support for Kyiv, increase Russia’s international isolation, and hold the perpetrators of atrocities to account.
The Saeima also urged European Union member-states to stop issuing tourist visas and to restrict the issuing of all entry visas to Russian and Belarusian citizens.
Beyond this year’s aggression in Ukraine, the measure accuses Russia of supporting and financing terror elsewhere, citing its backing for the Assad regime, and the poisoning in Britain of former Russian spy Sergei Skripal in 2018.
It also blames Moscow for the shooting down by its proxies in eastern Ukraine of Malaysia Airlines flight MH-17 in 2015, which killed all 298 passengers and crew.
Two weeks ago the U.S. Senate unanimously adopted a non-binding resolution calling on Secretary of State Antony Blinken to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism under U.S. law.
The measure, introduced by Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), accused Russia under Putin of “acts of international terrorism against political opponents and nation states,” with reference to military offensives in Chechnya, Syria, Georgia, and Ukraine.
It also cited the Skripal assassination attempt, the downing of flight MH-17, and Moscow’s support for “terrorist regimes and terrorist organizations” in the Middle East and Latin America.
“You have the complete unanimous support of the United States Senate to label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism,” Graham said afterwards in words directed at the administration. “Do it.”
So far, however, the response has been cautious.
“We’re just not going to discuss deliberations or potential deliberations on a potential designation from here,” State Department principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel said on Thursday. “As a matter of law, in order to designate any country as a state sponsor of terrorism, the secretary of state must determine that the government of that country has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism.”
Patel also said the administration has already taken “significant and effective steps” in response to the invasion of Ukraine, pointing to sanctions and export controls.
In similar comments a week earlier, National Security Council coordinator for strategic communications John Kirby – also in reaction to calls to label Russia a state sponsor of terror – that “a lot of the actions you can take [with a designation], we’re already taking.”
Blumenthal earlier rejected the notion that designation would be merely symbolic, saying that “it has practical significance.”
Graham elaborated: “It means that doing business with Russia with that designation gets to be exceedingly hard – it has secondary effect sanctions, it would limit dual export items, and more importantly it would waive sovereign immunity when it came to suing Russia in U.S. courts.”
In a letter to Blinken last spring, a group of House Democrats listed four potential implications of a designation, saying it would freeze Russian assets, including real estate, in the U.S.; allow the U.S. to veto Russian efforts to secure World Bank or IMF loans; prohibit a wide variety of dual-use exports; and enable the U.S. to take economic action against countries continuing to do business with Russia.
For its part, Russia is not taking the matter lightly.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told a briefing last week the move would violate international law and warned it could lead to a rupturing of diplomatic relations.
“We are ready for any turn of events, and if Washington decides to cut short relations with Moscow, we will survive this,” she said. “There should be no doubt about that.”
China, again, has come to Russia’s defense on the issue.
“The U.S. has always been obsessed with arbitrarily pinning labels on other countries and is used to claiming itself to be a moral judge,” foreign ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told a briefing last Friday.
“Russia is an important force for global counter-terrorism efforts and has played an active and constructive role in addressing the threat of terrorism,” Hua said. “This will not change simply because the U.S. has made ill-intentioned, false accusations against it.”
Designation requires a determination by the secretary of state that a country’s government “has repeatedly provided support for acts of international terrorism” over the previous decade.
North Korea, Iran, Cuba, and the Assad regime are currently listed.