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US Senate Moves to Designate Russia a State Sponsor of Terrorism Over Kidnapped Ukrainian Children
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![Photo of Vlad Litnarovych]( "Photo of Vlad Litnarovych")
The US Senate Foreign Relations Committee has approved a bipartisan bill that would officially designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism if it fails to return thousands of Ukrainian children abducted from occupied territories, Senator Lindsey Graham announced on October 22.
The Designating the Russian Federation as a State Sponsor of Terrorism Act (S. 2978), introduced by Graham alongside Senators Richard Blumenthal, Katie Britt, and Amy Klobuchar, aims to “exert maximum pressure on Russia” to ensure peace in Ukraine and secure the safe return of more than 19,000 Ukrainian children forcibly taken by Russian forces.
“I am very pleased that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee unanimously reported out my bill… to designate Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism under US law if they do not return the almost 20,000 Ukrainian children they kidnapped from occupied areas,” Graham said in a statement.
“These kidnappings by Putin’s Russia represent one of the most outrageous events since World War II.”
If the bill passes Congress, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio will be required to submit a report to lawmakers within 60 days confirming whether the children have been safely repatriated.
Should Russia fail to do so, the Secretary would be legally obliged to place Russia on the list of state sponsors of terrorism—a designation currently applied to Iran, North Korea, Cuba, Sudan, and Libya.
Graham emphasized that the move would have far-reaching economic and diplomatic consequences for Moscow.
“Making Russia a state sponsor of terrorism would be devastating to Russia’s economy,” he said. “It is a necessary consequence of Putin’s behavior if these kidnapped children are not returned home.”
The legislation also requires Russia to cease attacks on civilian infrastructure and stop assassination attempts against political targets to have the designation lifted, according to amendments supported by committee leaders.
Graham described the bill as a critical step toward accountability, adding that the world must not allow the Kremlin to “kidnap children, bomb cities, and murder civilians without consequences.”
Earlier, Russia’s Commissioner for Children’s Rights, Maria Lvova-Belova, recently gave an interview where she described taking a 15-year-old orphan, Pylyp, from the occupied Ukrainian city of Mariupol to Russia. Pylyp, who had lost his mother at 10, had expressed a strong dislike for Russia and did not want to live there.
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-06779709d4425f12b97576d00eafb350.jpeg "Explosion at the oil storage facility near the Likhovskaya railway station in Russia’s Rostov region, November 10, 2025. (Source: Exilenova_plus)")
