The Case for Designating the Donetsk and Luhansk People’s Militias as Foreign Terrorist Organizations

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited Bucha in April. (Rawpixel, https://www.rawpixel.com/image/6918377/photo-image-public-domain-people, CC0 1.0, https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/)

On Sept. 30, Russian President Vladimir Putin moved to officially annex the Ukrainian territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia, and Kherson following a sham referenda process in each of the oblasts.

Since then, Russian aggression in the occupied territories has accelerated. On Oct. 19, President Putin declared martial law in the occupied territories to reestablish control over these lands, giving the Kremlin sweeping extrajudicial powers to restrict movement in and out of the occupied territories, conduct illegal searches of people and seizures of property, forcibly resettle residents, and detain civilians without bringing charges.

Domestically, in the United States, calls to designate Russia as a State Sponsor of Terrorism (SST) have intensified; they’ve been This article has been indexed from Lawfare