Based on the unjustified and unprovoked invasion in Ukraine by the Russian Federation, which claimed thousands of lives of the civilian population, we call for the international recognition of the Office of the President of the Russian Federation, the Duma of the Russian Federation, the Government of the Russian Federation, and the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation as terrorist organizations.

Simply defining Russia as a Terrorist State would  have dramatic legal consequences: No one in the West does business with terrorists, and such a designation would further limit the Russian regime’s access to the finance it needs to fund its war machine.

Russia uses the pain of civilians as a tool to paralyze the country and occupy the country. Not only in Ukraine but through recent history under President Putin this path of terrorism began with the brutal subjugation of Chechnya shortly after he assumed power in 1999. He unleashed massive firepower upon civilians for the purpose of terrorizing the population. The objective was to kill so many civilians that Chechen forces would have no alternative but to capitulate. It worked. He later succeeded with the same scorched-earth tactics in Syria as a favour to the Syrian government, which the U.S. has labelled a state sponsor of terrorism. Putin has visited practically every outrage in the war crimes playbook on the Ukrainians in his push to seize their sovereign nation.

The world is familiar with the continual targeting of civilians by Russian forces, including the deliberate attack on the Mariupol theatre that killed about 600 people, the bombing of the train station in Kramatorsk on 8th of April where 59 people were killed as thousands of refugee women and children were waiting for evacuation trains,  the 1st of July, airstrike on a residential area near Odessa that killed at least 21 and the rocket attack on Vinnytsia city centre on the 14th of July where at least 26 people were killed including three children. 

Russian ground forces routinely engage in criminal activity in occupied areas — rape, theft, murder, torture and the like. When the small city of Bucha was liberated by Ukrainian forces, they found 280 bodies buried in mass graves. Similar atrocities have occurred in other occupied areas. The Russians have interrogated, detained and forcibly deported up to 1.6 million Ukrainian citizens, including 260,000 children into Russian territory. Putin’s evil words and horrendous misdeeds provide substantial weight to Ukraine’s claims of genocide.

Russia’s widespread use of weapons that kill, maim and destroy indiscriminately violates international norms, using cluster munitions, a weapon widely used by Russian forces. These consist of an artillery, missile or bomb canister that bursts in the air, spreading many little bomblets over a wide area. They kill indiscriminately and should never be used in civilian areas. Many of the bomblets do not detonate and can lay on the ground long into the future, waiting to be picked up by a curious child. 

Russian forces use six types of cluster munitions in Ukraine, both to spread terror and to indiscriminately kill civilians. Most recently, they have used them, along with incendiary devices, to frighten Ukrainian farmers and destroy their grain crops, sabotaging Ukraine’s domestic and export food supplies.

The definition of terrorism is a deliberate, indiscriminate attack on civilians with a political goal. And no one could try and explain how Russia’s conduct of war fails to meet this test. Failure to designate Russia as a terrorist state makes a mockery of the international agreements long established to deal with such horrors. It is time for the world to act.