Russia puts US Senator Lindsey Graham on terror list | Abroad

After the death of Russian opponent Alexei Navalny (47), Graham wants Russia to be designated as a state sponsor of terrorism. “Navalny was one of the bravest people I have ever met. When he went back to Russia he must have known that he was going to be killed by Putin, and he was killed by Putin,” Graham said last Sunday in the news program ‘Face the Nation’ on the American television channel CBS.

“Let’s make Russia a state sponsor of terrorism under American law. We must make the Russians pay for Navalny’s murder,” the senator said.

So far, the US has labeled four countries as state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Syria. The label carries many sanctions, such as a ban on the export and sale of defense equipment.

It is not the first time that Graham has clashed with the Kremlin. In 2022, he, like more than 200 other members of the US Congress, was denied entry to Russia.

In 2023, Russia issued another arrest warrant following a video of Graham’s meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. In that video, the senator calls military aid to Ukraine “the best expenditure we have ever made” because “Russians are dying because of it.” A longer clip showed that it was two clips edited together, but the Russian Interior Ministry called Graham’s statements “ridiculous and scandalous.”

Last week, Russia placed Estonian Prime Minister Kaja Kallas on its wanted list. Kallas would be prosecuted for “the destruction and damage of monuments to Soviet soldiers” in World War II. In recent years, the Baltic states have removed several monuments that they inherited from the Soviet Union from their streets.