washington —
As Ukrainian forces continue to battle Russian troops in the east and south of the country, Europe and the United States are considering additional pressure to convince Russia’s Vladimir Putin to end its invasion.
VOA’s Misha Komadovsky sat down with former U.S. ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul to discuss his proposals for new sanctions against Russian oligarchs, the consequences of labeling Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, and the possible collapse of the Russian Federation as a result of its war against Ukraine.
Former ambassador Michael McFaul is a diplomat and academic who was the U.S. ambassador to Russia from 2012 to 2014.
This interview has been condensed and edited for clarity.
You've been working with the office of the President of Ukraine on imposing sanctions against Russian proxies and those who support the Kremlin in its invasion of Ukraine. Currently your primary target is Russian propagandists and opinion leaders. What is the final goal here?
Well, so, first let me clarify what we do and what we informally do, right? So, the group that I coordinate is an international working group that tries to come up with new ideas to suggest ideas for governments for new sanctions. We coordinate with Russia - with the Ukrainian government, Mr. Yermak, but I want to, I want to emphasize that our group is independent from the government of Ukraine, independent from the United States government. Again, we talk to everybody but we're - our ideas ultimately are just independent analysts. None of us work for any government. Ultimately, we come up with ideas that ... can only be implemented by governments, right?
Sanctions, and or by companies, by the way. We - sometimes the target of our activities – are aimed at trying to get companies to rethink what they're doing. The latest paper that we just put out, it's an appendix to working paper number three that you just noted, is to give greater attention to what we call the propagandists for Putin's war. These are not just people on TV supporting the war, but these ... can be a variety of kinds of people - soft power as we call it in English, right? – that are indirectly supporting Putin's regime and Putin's war. And we believe that there needs to be more attention to these people. That they are not innocents, that that if they are performing concerts in support of the Russian military, especially if they do so in annexed territory that the Russians are illegally occupying, they should pay some consequences for those activities.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you are trying to convince the U.S. government to recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism, President Biden said that he would not go ahead with this, and my sources at the White House explained to me that this label could be compared to, you know, a huge blanket that you can put on Russia but it's difficult to take it off, and it would make, for instance, the Green Deal impossible. So is it a done deal for you, or is there still a chance that the U.S. will recognize Russia as a state sponsor of terrorism at some point?
I don't know the answer to your question. We did publish a paper about that. We believe that the actions that the Russian government is taking inside Ukraine are terrorist acts. They are terrorizing non-combatants. And I'm not a lawyer, but I looked at the language of that law very, very closely. And it's difficult to say in a normative way that what Russia is doing, somehow, in Ukraine is not terrorism.
And I just remind your viewers, Cuba is on the list. So, tell me is Cuba terrorizing people in a different country to a greater extent than Russia is inside Ukraine? My answer to that is "no." So I think that's a very difficult argument for people to make that Russia somehow is a better international actor with regard to terrorism than Cuba is today. Cuba is still on the list.
Now, I know those arguments from the White House. I have colleagues who work in the White House. I understand their concerns, that they think sanctions will be sticky and that you can't do certain cooperation with Russia if they're a state sponsor of terrorism, but actually the law gives the President the right to do certain things within the law to grant exemptions. So, it's not true that we can't work with them.