Opinion: Time to Call Russia What It Is: a Terrorist State

For more than 11 years Russia has waged a brutal war against Ukraine, relentlessly terrorizing its civilian population. Since the start of the full-scale invasion, Russian forces have launched tens of thousands of missiles and strike drones and dropped hundreds of thousands of aerial bombs on Ukrainian cities and villages. The consequences are catastrophic: more than 15,000 civilian deaths, 42,000 wounded, over 2 million homes destroyed or damaged, and roughly 12 million people forced to flee their homes.

The United Nations, as so often in history, has remained passive – limited to symbolic sanctions and repeated calls for both sides to reach a peace agreement. But as events have shown, those measures do not work and will not deliver a stable and just peace.

As Mark Voyger and Yuliya Shtaltova aptly observed, public debate in the West continues to reduce the conflict to a regional territorial dispute – a tug-of-war over land. That oversimplification leads many to believe Ukraine can simply “give up some territory” to stop the bloodshed. That logic ignores reality.

The reality is that the true cause of this war lies in Moscow’s historical aggressiveness and its current drive to restore the Russian Empire. Russia’s demands in negotiations show that Moscow’s goal is not to achieve peace but to buy time to carry out a clearly and consistently declared objective: the destruction of Ukraine as a state and of Ukrainians as a nation.

The idea that Ukraine should “cede territory for peace” is not merely immoral – it is suicidal. The Kremlin will interpret any concession as weakness and push further. If Russian terrorism succeeds, it will become a global playbook for dictators.

In July 2022 the US Senate unanimously passed a resolution urging the State Department to designate Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism for its actions in Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and Ukraine. Implementation of that resolution was blocked at the time by opposition from the then-secretary of state and the president.

In June 2024 Congress returned to the issue after Russia signed a defense pact with North Korea. A new bipartisan bill confirmed the case for such a designation, citing, among other things, the illegal annexation of Crimea, the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, mass killings of civilians, the poisoning of Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Yushchenko in 2004, the murder of Alexander Litvinenko in 2006, the poisoning of Sergei Skripal and his daughter in the United Kingdom in 2018, the downing of flight MH17 in 2014, the bombing of Aleppo in 2016, and the death of Alexei Navalny in a Russian prison in 2024.

But all these arguments, and the broader analysis of Russia’s conduct in the war against Ukraine – together with repeated statements by Russian leaders about possible invasions and nuclear strikes against NATO countries – demonstrate that the Kremlin does not merely support terrorism: it actively organizes and perpetrates it.

The label “sponsor of terrorism” no longer fits. A sponsor is someone who helps terrorists. Russia is the terrorist. It should be officially recognized as a terrorist state.

Some may object: “There is no legal status called ‘terrorist state.’” That is not a persuasive argument. The category “State Sponsor of Terrorism” did not exist until the United States created it in 1989. Law should reflect reality. Today’s reality is a Russia that functions as a nuclear, mafioso-terrorist state.

Official recognition of that fact would provide legal clarity, aid in isolating Putin, and allow the application of the same approaches used against Muammar Qaddafi or Osama bin Laden. It would also remove a glaring absurdity: Today we punish those who assist a crime, while the crime itself goes unpunished.

The world tirelessly hunts serial killers who secretly murdered dozens. Yet those who openly destroy thousands by commanding armies remain untouchable. That moral and legal paradox must be broken.

Putin is not a “strong leader.” He is a dictator who wages terror against civilians. The state he leads is no longer a state in the classical sense – it is a terrorist formation.

The world must call things by their proper name – clearly and officially.