Americas
US should designate Russia as a terrorist state — report
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January 14, 2025

The incoming Trump administration should not ease sanctions on “kremligarchs” in a quick deal to end the war in Ukraine but should instead sanction more ultra-wealthy Russian businesspeople and consider designating the Russian Federation as a terrorist state, according to a new report published by US think-tank the Atlantic Council last week.
To lift sanctions as part of a peace deal would be to ignore the ongoing state of hybrid warfare President Vladimir Putin is waging and the importance that oligarchs working alongside him play in Russia’s “weaponised kleptocracy”, the report said. During a presentation and panel discussion at the Atlantic Council in Washington, DC, its author, Ilya Zaslavskiy, said: “Iʼm positive, as are many other commentators, that [removing] all sanctions, including on oligarchs, are on the table in the upcoming peace negotiations on Ukraine.”
Global leaders should not return to ‘business as usual’ through a “quick and unfair peace deal”, added Zaslavskiy, a senior campaigner at Ukrainian non-profit Razom We Stand.
“The West needs to acknowledge that Russia has chosen to engage in a hybrid war against the West, and hot wars against its partners. Western leaders can’t afford to keep open business and legal avenues that Russian kleptocracy freely uses,” he said. “The West must consider options to reduce all trade with Russia, as it did during certain periods of the Cold War, and must designate Russia as a terrorist state like North Korea for its war crimes, political murders and other horrific actions.”
Zaslavskiy’s paper, “Sanctioned kleptocracy: How Putin’s kremligarchs have survived the war — and even prospered”, coined the term kremligarch to convey the view that ultra-wealthy Russian businessmen are actually state agents.
Despite intensified sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine in 2022, overall sanctions against Russia are still limited, incremental and inadequate despite the scale of the countryʼs aggression in Ukraine and globally, Zaslavskiy said.
“Even with the high level of sanctions, they can only partially curb the negative impact of kremligarchs, especially outside of Western jurisdictions, in the so-called global South, in South America, in Africa, in Asia. The second echelon — the less visible kremligarchs, the non-sanctioned ones — continue to exert considerable influence inside Western states as well; especially in certain countries that are more open to their influence.”
Endorsements
Senior US sanctions experts and diplomats echoed Zaslavskiy’s call for a tougher political and economic approach to Russia.
Daniel Fried, former US ambassador to Poland and Weiser Family distinguished fellow at the Atlantic Council, described the recommendation as “sound and sensible” but questioned what the Trump administration would do. In his first term, Donald Trump “did an inconsistent job of pushing new sanctions, but not a bad one”, said Fried.
“It is possible that they will proceed and incorporate some of your [Zaslavskiy’s] suggestions that have been made by other people. Or they could do a deal on Ukraine — at which point the Russians will insist that sanctions be removed, and you are right to flag that as an area where we need to proceed with caution, if at all.”
The US needs to do more on the home front to contain kremligarch activity, said Jodi Vittori, professor of practice and co-chair of global politics and security concentration at Georgetown University.
“A lot of that [kremligarch] money — we don’t know how much — is already [in the US]. Itʼs still remarkably easy to launder that money, particularly since the Corporate Transparency Act, which ended anonymous shell companies, is held up by the Fifth Circuit Court. Itʼs currently in front of the Supreme Court, and we donʼt know whatʼs going to happen with it,” she said. “If weʼre going to be serious about containing Russia, both as US and the West, we really have to protect our own money, and financial assets.”
Turbo agents
Zaslavskiy also suggested ‘kremligarchs’ should replace the older term ‘oligarchs’, which conveyed “a sense of independence, both political and economic, from the Kremlin”. This was no longer true: “Now they have achieved unprecedented global reach, infiltrated every continent, and their defining feature is that they are backed by ample resources, with the political will of the Kremlin behind them.”
Kremligarchs can also use their vast resources to hire lawyers and lobbyists, he added. When business avenues prove insufficient to advance their goals, they can tap security services and organised crime to expand their networks and influence, and have used these avenues to insert themselves into global financial and natural resources value chains.
The US, the European Union, and the UK should designate more Russian billionaires as kremligarchs concludes Zaslavskiy’s report. Prominent businessmen Roman Abramovich, Leonid Mikhelson and Dmitry Rybolovlev are not subject to US sanctions, for example.
“Kremligarchs are turbo agents. KGB agents on steroids,” Zaslavskiy said.