The measure comes in response to a request for such a move by Ukraine whose President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly pleaded for Russia to be designated as a terrorist state, Polish state news agency PAP reported.
"The need for this measure is more pressing now than ever before," Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, one of the bill's sponsors, told reporters on Wednesday, as quoted by the Reuters news agency.
He cited the killings of civilians and other "brutal, cruel oppression" in Ukraine since Russia's invasion.
US Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal. Photo: EPA/ANDREW HARNIK
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, another bill sponsor, said the designation would send a strong signal of support for Ukraine, while imposing stiff penalties on Russia, according to Reuters.
The two senators have been joined by other lawmakers in voicing support for the idea, but US administration officials have spoken against such a designation for Russia, saying it could hinder deliveries of humanitarian assistance to Ukraine, Reuters reported.
State Department spokesman Ned Price told a news conference on Wednesday that President Joe Biden's administration was discussing with lawmakers measures "analogous" to those that would be imposed on Russia's economy by the designation, according to Reuters.
The "state sponsor of terrorism" list currently includes four countries, North Korea, Cuba, Iran and Syria.
Latvia's parliament last month designated Russia as a "state sponsor of terrorism" over the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine and called on Western allies to impose wide-ranging sanctions on Moscow in order to bring an end to the war.
In May, Lithuanian lawmakers voted unanimously to label Moscow's assault on Ukraine as "genocide" and to denounce Russia as "a state that supports and perpetrates terrorism," according to reports at the time.
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Source: PAP, Reuters