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. [Russian President] 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 of 2025″ — seeks to undercut the Kremlin-Beijing economic partnership, an axis that has proven highly effective in skirting sanctions regimes.
The STOP China and Russia Act of 2025 would impose sanctions on Chinese individuals and entities that provide material or technological support to Russia’s military or defense industry amid its war in Ukraine. The bill also directs the administration to coordinate with U.S. allies on joint diplomatic and economic actions to curb China’s assistance to Russia.
“This legislation would deliver a severe blow to Russia’s economy and trade by cutting off the resources that allow Putin to fund this war,” said Republican Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran on the Senate floor last Thursday. “We can hasten the path to success in finding peace.”
“I hope that the time has come now to move forward on the Russia sanctions bill,” Blumenthal said of the bill on Wednesday. “To use an economic sledgehammer and stop India, China, and Brazil from fueling Putin’s war machine.”
The final bill emerging from Foreign Relations on Wednesday — the “REPO for Ukrainians Implementation Act of 2025″ — strengthens enforcement of existing law allowing the U.S. to transfer frozen Russian assets to Ukraine. The bill streamlines how those funds are invested and distributed, requiring regular disbursements to support Ukraine and urging allied nations to repurpose their own seized Russian assets.
“This liar went to Alaska and went back and bombed and killed innocent Ukrainian citizens. Every time that man’s lips move, he’s lying,” Republican North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis told reporters on Wednesday, referring to Putin. “Talking to this liar … I think it’s been a waste of time for the last three years.”
The committee’s actions come as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy presses Washington for long-range weapons, proposing a trade of thousands of Ukrainian-made drones for U.S. Tomahawk missiles during a recent White House meeting with President Donald Trump.
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