The Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs allowed diplomatic relations with the United States to be broken in the event that Washington declared Russia a sponsor of terrorism. The announcement was made on Tuesday, August 2, by the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Maria Zakharova.

“The logical result of such an irresponsible step could be a rupture in diplomatic relations, after which Washington risks finally crossing the point of no return with all the attendant consequences,” she said.

Zelensky asked Biden to recognize Russia as a “country sponsor of terrorism”

In April, the Washington Post reported, citing sources, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asked US President Joe Biden to recognize Russia as a sponsor of terrorism. Such a potential move by Washington has been called “one of the most powerful and far-reaching sanctions in the US arsenal”.

In late July, the United States Senate of Congress made such an appeal, adopting a non-binding resolution. Senators called on Secretary of State Anthony Blinken to declare Russia a sponsoring state of terrorism because of events in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine that led to the “death of countless innocent men, women and children”. According to The New York Times, Blinken opposes the decision.

The State Department can declare a country a sponsor of terrorism if the state “repeatedly supports acts of international terrorism,” according to a State Department newsletter. Inclusion on the list allows the White House to, among other things, freeze the assets of those states, as well as impose sanctions on third countries that maintain economic relations with them. The US has given this status to four countries: North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria.