In a twisted event, the Kremlin and President Joe Biden have now agreed on what to do more than six months after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine.
Biden said this weekend that he doesn’t think Russia should be designated as a state sponsoring terrorismand now the Kremlin has lavished praise on the president, announcing Tuesday that Moscow thanked Biden for his position that the U.S. should avoid designating Russia.
The Kremlin reportedly “appreciated” Biden’s failure to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. TASS.
“It is good that the president of the United States responded in this way,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on RBC TV, according to Tass news agency. “The formulation of the issue itself is horrific.”
If the U.S. designates Russia, Moscow will join North Korea, Syria, Iran and Cuba.
News of Biden’s intention to avoid designating Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism comes as Russia appears desperate for any victory. Ukrainian forces have begun a counteroffensive targeting Kherson in southern Ukraine, where Russian forces captured Kherson in the first days of the war. The Russian Defense Minister has announced that Russia is slowing the pace of the war. Putin is trying to form a new army battle group, but has had to rely on the recruitment of prisoners and the removal of age caps.
A key Russian general, the head of the Russian National Guard, told Putin just last week that Ukrainians supported Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, in an apparent attempt to appease a visibly shaken Putin.
Six months after the war, Putin’s military industrial complex is struggling to keep pace with manufacturing to support Russian troops in Ukraine. In a sign of how desperate Russia has become, it is turning to fellow country North Korea for millions of shells and rockets, two US officials told the Daily Beast on Tuesday.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment about the Kremlin’s “appreciation” of Biden’s position.
Biden’s comments come weeks after Russia warned the United States not to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. Putting Russia on the sanctions list will bring new sanctions and defense export restrictions that will bring diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington to an all-time low, Alexander Dalchiyev, head of the North American Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry, said. point.
“We should put them on the list and move on.“
“Washington will have to cross the point of no return and inflict the most serious collateral damage to bilateral diplomatic relations until they are lowered or even interrupted,” Darchiev says In a TASS interview last month. “The U.S. side has been warned.”
While Biden may have heeded the warning, the legislative branch was not involved. In recent months, pressure from Capitol Hill has prompted the Biden administration to help Ukraine better respond to a Russian incursion, including sending Ukraine an advanced rocket launch system, or High Mobility Rocket Artillery System (HIMARS).
Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), one of several lawmakers in the House proposing to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, told The Daily Beast that he thinks Biden is here The position is not correct.
“The tangible support we provide to Ukraine and sanctions against Russia are far more important than any symbolic designation,” Malinowski told The Daily Beast. “But Russia does deserve this because it supports violent extremists and proxies like the Wagner Group, so I still think we should put them on the list and move on.”
Rep. Michael McCall of Texas, the Republican leader on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, slammed Biden’s stance.
“It is unacceptable that President Biden’s rash and outright dismissal of Russia’s designation of a state sponsor of terrorism is unacceptable,” McCall told The Daily Beast. There is growing evidence of widespread Russian war crimes in Ukraine. , while Putin’s willingness to threaten a nuclear disaster at the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant requires the United States and its allies to do everything in their power to isolate the Putin regime and hold it accountable for the unprovoked war on Ukraine. “
Momentum in Congress has been slowly building to continue to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism — and to push Biden to go further than the administration he wants.Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rob Portman (R-OH) passed a non-binding Resolution The Senate urged the State Department to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism. All 100 senators supported the resolution.
Malinowski’s House measure with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Joe Wilson (R-SC) and Jared Golden (D-ME) goes one step further and will bypass Any action from a Biden administration is slow to take the next step, with or without the State Department.
U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken has previously said Russia is “terrorizing” the Ukrainian people, but said he currently does not see the move as relevant.
“The cost we and other countries impose on Russia absolutely matches the consequences of being designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. So the actual effect of what we do is the same,” Blinken told reporters in late July.
