Congress aims to label Russia ‘Aggressor State’ instead of state sponsor of terrorism

Congressional leadership is working to quickly introduce a bill condemning Russia as an “Aggressor State” amid plans for Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to visit Washington on Wednesday. 

The designation would provide the president new sanctions authorities to target Russian officials; however a House GOP aide called it a “half-baked” response to Zelensky’s demand that the U.S. designate Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.

The state sponsor of terrorism (SST) label would isolate Moscow internationally and compel the U.S. to impose costs on countries engaging with the Kremlin.

Sanctions related to the SST designation include restrictions on U.S. foreign assistance, a ban on defense exports and sales, certain controls over exports of dual use items and other financial restrictions.

The Biden administration has rejected that effort, saying it would tie the hands of the U.S. in engaging with Russia generally and box in the administration on any diplomatic efforts to end Russia’s war against Ukraine. 

“We’re working with Congress right now on legislation that would help us get around some of the challenges of using the state sponsor of terrorism designation, which … has some unintended consequences,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in an interview with CNN earlier this month.

The administration further says that sanctions imposed on Russia since its February invasion are on par with what is required from the SST designation.

The draft text is being negotiated between the administration and congressional leadership, Republican congressional aides told The Hill, criticizing the effort for failing to impose any serious costs on Moscow.  

“Zelensky asked for the State Sponsor of Terror designation and instead the Biden Administration has told them it won’t support it, but have concocted an alternative designation that doesn’t even exist under US domestic or international law — there is no legal basis for it,” a congressional aide familiar with negotiations told The Hill.

“It’s a half-baked PR measure that won’t do anything to punish Russia, nor help the Ukrainian people,” the congressional aide added.

A version of the draft text, obtained exclusively by The Hill, says that the president, upon enactment of the measure, can designate Russia an “Aggressor State” and has the power to “designate any foreign country” as an aggressor state if the president determines it is engaged in acts of aggression against Ukraine. 

Belarus has also been widely sanctioned for its support of Russia’s war, with a visit from Russian President Vladimir Putin this week raising fears that it could send troops into Ukraine as well. 

The draft text allows for the president to sanction any individual who is “responsible for, engaged in or complicit in” the crime of aggression as laid out in the bill. 

U.S. officials familiar with the administration and Congressional talks say that the aggressor text is aimed at preventing significant consequences that would occur as part of an SST designation, in particular on the ability of the United Nations and Turkey to facilitate the shipment of grain from Ukraine while its ports are under a Russian blockade, called the Black Sea Grain Initiative.

“We are in contact with Congress on new accountability mechanisms it is working on – ones that would not come with the unintended, harmful global consequences of an SST designation and actually address the case of Russia’s atrocities and aggression in an effective way,” a senior administration official told The Hill.

But critics of the text say that those sanctions authorities are redundant, as the Biden administration has sanctioned Putin and many of his top officials and family members since Moscow launched its invasion against Ukraine in February. 

U.S.-based civil society organizations supporting Ukraine issued a joint statement objecting to the aggressor state legislation. The statement was signed by the Ukrainian Congress Committee of America, Joint Baltic American National Committee and Razom for Ukraine.

“The Biden Administration’s newly proposed ‘Aggressor State’ designation for Russia is a damaging concept that undermines current congressional efforts to support Ukraine,” the groups wrote in a joint statement on Tuesday.

“Russia is engaged currently in a full-scale, ruthless war and genocide against Ukraine and its people. This new proposed designation would do nothing to change Russian actions, to seize Russian state assets, or to meaningfully hold Russia’s government accountable, and simply relies on Executive Branch discretion to determine when Russia’s aggression against Ukraine ends,” the groups added.

The groups further said that they “fear” the aggressor state designation would allow for “easing sanctions and returning frozen assets to war criminals as part of premature negotiations with Russia.”

“While the US Government, Congress, and President Biden have done much to support Ukraine, the ‘Aggressor State’ proposal is counterproductive and should not be adopted,” they wrote.

Republicans further say that the aggressor state text is rhetorically weaker than efforts to condemn Russia as committing genocide in Ukraine. Senators from both sides of the aisle introduced in July a resolution recognizing Russia’s actions in Ukraine as genocide.

“Calling Russia an aggressor state responsible for campaigns of terror against civilians in Ukraine, we already know that,” the aide said. “We don’t need a new designation for that, and we’re already throwing around terms like genocide that are much stronger.” 

The Hill has reached out to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) office for comment on the aggressor state legislation.

Ukrainian officials acknowledged to The Hill that the aggressor state status does not fulfill their requests for labeling Russia as a terrorist state but are supportive of the measure as a way to describe Russia as carrying out acts of terrorism and can generally support coining a separate term if it provides additional instruments to punish aggressor states. 

The European Union passed a nonbinding resolution in November calling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, a largely symbolic move but one that is viewed by Ukrainian officials as helping establish international consensus isolating Putin. 

Still, legislation condemning Russia as committing the crime of aggression is also in line with Ukrainian efforts to establish a special tribunal to prosecute Russian officials, and likely Putin, as instigating the invasion against Ukraine. An estimated 50,000 alleged Russian war crimes have been documented by Ukrainian officials. 

Anton Korynevych, Ukraine’s ambassador-at-large for the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was in Washington earlier this month with a delegation aiming to build support for a special tribunal and calling for a bipartisan resolution condemning Russia as committing the crime of aggression. 

Korynevych said a resolution recognizing Russia as committing the crime of aggression against Ukraine was supported by the French parliament and that his meetings in the U.S. sought to build on this effort. 

“We also talked with our … American parliamentarian colleagues, in order for the House of Representatives in U.S. Congress to adopt the same resolution, which is now there and which we hope will be registered in beginning of January and it is a bipartisan draft resolution,” he said.

–Updated on Dec. 21 at 8:13 a.m.