Moscow’s bounties paid to the Taliban for killing U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan should become ultima ratio for the U.S. Congress to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
The Stopping Malign Actions from Russian Terrorism (SMART) Act by Democratic Congressman Max Rose and Congresswoman Kendra Horn of Oklahoma was introduced in the Congress on July 10. The authors suggest that the State Department give an expert opinion on whether the Russian Federation should be designated immediately as a state sponsor of terrorism by the Congress. Senator Rose proposes to obtain the State Department’s point whether it is valid to designate the armed groups created and financed by the Kremlin under the guise of self-proclaimed states as terrorist organizations as well.
Russia’s involvement in killing the U.S. servicemen in Afghanistan is the latest in a chain of events that started when Russian SAM SA-11 Gadfly downed Boeing-777 from pro-Russian separatist-controlled territory in Donbas, Ukraine. This chain included the attempted murder of the Skripal family in Salisbury, UK, the assassination of Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, an attempted coup in Montenegro, the poisoning of an arms dealer in Bulgaria, the military training of European neo-Nazis, propelling unrest in the United States, and numerous hacker attacks on NATO member countries infrastructure.
Russia is playing the card of the Democratic and Republican parties today to make away with the democracy in the United States, weaken our country as much as possible and carry it to collapse. Moscow holds the United States responsible in fall of the Soviet Union. The phantom pains of KGB Lieutenant Colonel Putin and his passion to rebuild the Union are focusing Russia’s policy on revenge and Soviet propaganda narrative about the wicked West.
Therefore, the White House should know its own mind to defend national security.
The Netherlands and Australia have already launched the international legal procedure to bring the Russian Federation to justice by filing a claim with the European Court of Human Rights (ECHR). Russia defends a suit at the ECHR for MH-17 downing 6 years ago.
The legal assessment of Russia’s aggression in MH-17 case might make it possible to drown the Kremlin in lawsuits in international courts. The Dutch government’s claim to the ECHR opens the way for the filing and positive treatment of individual claims against Russia by the relatives of those killed over the Kremlin’s activity in backing international terrorism and conducting hostilities around the world. The amendments to the Russian Constitution will definitely allow Moscow to ignore future verdicts. However, deep Russia’s integration into the world economy enables to put effective financial and economic screws on Russia, up to dismantling its statehood.
President Reagan became a part of history as the leader of the free world when the Evil Empire collapsed. The Cold War ended with other than war measures. Similar to the Union, Russia is economically weak and vulnerable state with a large territory and a weak transport and logistics structure that require significant budgetary support.
Russia fully meets the criteria that make for designating it as a sponsor of terrorism today. MH-17 case might well be squared with Scheme 1 used as a figure in ‘A NEW TYPOLOGY FOR STATE-SPONSORED INTERNATIONAL TERRORISM‘ by Jeremy R. Reeves. Thus, Russia boosted pro-Russian separatists in the East of Ukraine politically and informationally; offered opportunities to move the people, military hardware, and facilities across its border with unrecognized puppet republics. There are mountains of evidence that military hardware was transferred from Russia’s Army to militants, including the SA-11 Gadfly from the 53rd Air Defense Brigade, that shot down a Malaysian plane. The pro-Russian forces in the Donbas were also funded by the Russian Federation in accordance with representatives of Russia’s GRU (Military Intelligence Service), Defense Ministry, FSB (Federal Security Service) and the Presidential Administration.
Since mid-2014, Russian generals have been directly commanding two army corps in eastern Ukraine, which speaks for complete control over these troops. Separatists acted in coordination with the Russian military that provided not just intelligence support, but backed the military actions by fire, air cover and air defense from Russian territory as well, the Bellingcat investigation claims.
From the very beginning of the war in Donbas, Russia’s representatives were in contact with the leaders of the militants, both at the level of the military command and at the political level – the State Duma members, Russia’s Presidential Administration, Defense Ministry, who transferred Russia’s state war equipment in breach of international rules for trade and military hardware and dual-use goods supplies.
MH-17 case also meets the Unconcern or ignorance criterion, i.e., despite the possibility to prevent hostilities and not use the transferred SAM system, that was not done.
Therefore, MH-17 case investigation and the dynamics when the pre-trial investigation findings become indictments amid ongoing Russia’s destructive policy, subversive, sabotage and terrorist acts in the world, make for designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Similar arguments might be applied to investigate Russia’s hand in military operations backing Khalifa Haftar’s LNA or Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, Hezbollah, Iranian militia groups and so-called Russian private military companies bearing the marks of terrorist organizations.
