Congress Ups Ante Against Russia In New ‘State Sponsor Of Terror’ Bill, Hits China On The Way

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee advanced three bipartisan bills on Wednesday in an effort to tighten the screws on Moscow and its backers nearly three years after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

If passed by the Senate, the trio of bills will label Russia a state sponsor of terrorism, sanction China for supporting Russia’s war effort, and transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine.

“I’m really delighted and proud that this overwhelming vote will put on a path to passage, very soon, maybe in the next few weeks, a measure designating Russia as a state-sponsor of terrorism if it refuses to return the 20,000. That’s right, 20,000 kidnapped children,” Democratic Connecticut Sen. Richard Blumenthal told reporters on Wednesday. “It is a war crime. Vladimir Putin is purposely doing it, and the outrage ought to move us to pass this bill literally within coming weeks.”

Blumenthal is referring to the “Designating the Russian Federation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism Act,” a bipartisan bill proposed by Blumenthal and Democratic colleague Sen. Amy Klobuchar, along with Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Katie Britt. Having passed committee, if enacted by Congress, the bill will label the Russian state as a sponsor of terrorism should it fail to return some 19,546 children allegedly kidnapped by the Russian army.

“President Putin’s regime seeks the ‘Russification’ of Ukrainian children through kidnapping, deportation, or displacement to destroy their Ukrainian identity,” the bill alleges. “Many of these Ukrainian children are forced into ‘re-education’ camps or youth paramilitary organizations in the Russian Federation and other locations, with the intent of training them for future deployment as service members in the Russian Armed Forces.”

The second bill approved by the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Wednesday — the “Severing Technology Transfer Operations and Partnerships between (STOP) China and Russia Act