With help from Lawrence Ukenye and Daniel Lippman
The State Department is quietly letting congressional offices know that it has substantive concerns about labeling Russia a state sponsor of terrorism.
In July, Speaker NANCY PELOSI told Secretary of State ANTONY BLINKEN that if he didn’t put Russia on the terrorism blacklist, then Congress would. Since then, the Senate unanimously passed a non-binding resolution urging Blinken to do so, followed by a bipartisan quintet of House members introducing a bill that would officially slap the designation on Russia — circumventing the nation’s top diplomat.
To date, State officials haven’t openly said anything for or against the House measure, except to insist the ultimate decision rests solely with Blinken and note that current U.S.-imposed sanctions and export controls on Russia are nearly equivalent to what the bill would mandate.
But multiple people familiar with the conversations told NatSec Daily that agency officials in recent days have relayed to congressional offices their serious problems with the legislation.
Namely, they said, State fears putting Russia on the state sponsor of terrorism list would imperil the fragile deal to let grain ships leave Ukrainian ports. It took months to broker that arrangement, and while vessels are slowly starting to depart the Black Sea — slightly calming a rampant global food crisis — there’s no guarantee Russia will live up to its commitments if it’s targeted so directly by the United States.
What’s more, a country on the terrorism blacklist — a badge of dishonor only bestowed on North Korea, Syria, Cuba and Iran — suffers from blanket sanctions, meaning that the U.S. essentially cuts off Americans from engaging in business arrangements in those countries. That would include the various private-sector actors needed to keep the shipping deal alive and impact other key economic relationships that the U.S. maintains — like on nuclear materials — despite the raft of sanctions.
The counterargument from some on the Hill is that the legislation wouldn’t automatically trigger sanctions that scuttle the food-shipping plan. It might cause some shivers up the collective spine of the private sector, but it’s nothing that can’t be easily assuaged in conversations with business leaders, these people say. Treasury could conceivably also design carve outs to please industry.
Others your host spoke to worried the bill wouldn’t come up for a vote in the House Foreign Affairs Committee without express support from the administration. For the moment none has been given, even in private, though it’s currently recess and the measure isn’t necessarily Pelosi’s top priority. It’s, therefore, possible it will get attention when Congress is back in session in September.
Representatives for the speaker and HFAC didn’t return requests for comment about the legislation.
UKRAINE’S NEW STRATEGY: Ukrainian Defense Minister OLEKSII REZNIKOV said his country’s forces are turning to a new approach in the six-month war: Striking military targets deep inside Russian-held territory.
Ukraine doesn’t have the troop numbers or weapons to launch an offensive to retake seized territory, he told The Washington Post in a Thursday interview, so until such resources arrive, hitting sensitive Russian sites to degrade its capabilities will have to do.
“We’re using a strategy to ruin their stocks, to ruin their depots, to ruin their headquarters, commander quarters,” Reznikov said. “It’s our answer to their meat-grinder tactics.” Kyiv is activating a “resistance force,”…
Read More: State shares fears about Russia terrorism bill with Congress- POLITICO