Tennessee Democratic Congressman Steve Cohen is a longtime member of the US Helsinki Commission, the joint congressional delegation to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe. Steve Cohen was one of the organizers of the recent Helsinki Commission hearings into the possible designation of Wagner’s PMCs as terrorists, and he is also one of the sponsors of the HARM law on holding Russian mercenaries accountable, currently being debated by the House of Representatives. A similar law is currently under consideration in the Senate.
In an interview with the Russian media service, lawmakers stressed that US authorities should go further and declare Russia a country committing acts of genocide in Ukraine.
Danila Galperovich: You are one of the authors of the bill on the recognition of the Wagner Group as a foreign terrorist organization. Why is such a law necessary and what will be the effect?
Steve Cohen: The Russian Mercenary Liability Law will clearly define the Wagner Group as a terrorist organization and establish for people who deal with this group – in the supply of products, goods of any kind, in general, anything – the possibility of criminal sanctions. And those are the most effective penalties we can impose on them – criminal liability for doing business with the Wagner Group. And that will hopefully stop people from doing business with them.
DG: When will the House of Representatives consider your bill and when can it be passed? Which will pass first – a similar law in the Senate or yours?
SK: Many factors influence this. The Senate and the House of Representatives are completely independent of each other, and I don’t know how quickly they will work when this work begins to move forward. Last year we had a problem with declaring Russia as a country committing acts of genocide – it was supposed to happen, the Senate was about to approve it, but the law did not passed by the House of Representatives. We had problems with our Foreign Affairs Committee. I hope there won’t be any problems this year, but we’ll see. Michael McCall, current chairman of this committee in the House of Representatives, strongly supports Ukraine.
DG: During the hearings on the recognition of the Wagner group as a terrorist group, you mentioned the possibility of accusing the Russian authorities and soldiers of genocide, and you have just mentioned it. So, could you clarify: does this follow logically from the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity?
SK: In my opinion, Russia committed these crimes. There are international standards for declaring a country guilty of genocide, and Russia complies with these standards. They took children to Ukraine, took them out of the country to change their identity and “russify” them, which is why the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Putin, because he is a war crime. They raped men, women, children. They destroyed cultural objects and signs with the aim of destroying Ukrainian identity itself. They bombed civilian buildings, even hospitals. They did everything that is considered genocide. Why didn’t the State Department agree to identify them as perpetrators of genocide? I don’t know.
The State Department exercised restraint, I assume, because there are certain consequences that flow from declaring that a country is committing acts of genocide that the State Department will then have to enforce. It’s not even the same as recognizing these people as a terrorist organization – it’s a higher level of sanctions that puts even more restrictions on what they do.
DG: Am I to understand correctly that if any of these laws – I mean yours on the Wagner group and similar ones in the Senate – pass and President Biden signs it, then the State Department simply has to declare the international “Wagner” group the terrorists?
SK: The bill says they have to, according to the laws of the United States, since we allow them to make such decisions. But we can recommend and advise them, and they don’t necessarily have to follow what we say. However, if Congress passes the law, I think the State Department is unlikely to refuse to enforce it, especially if the president signs it. I think passing the law will help solve this problem, and I believe they will follow instructions from Congress. We have done a lot of good things for Ukraine and we will continue to support Ukrainians, but I think we need to step up a level or two in this support – in particular, to provide them with everything they need, because this war will continue. In the spring, an upsurge in Russian aggression is expected, as well as an intensification of the Ukrainian counter-offensive. And the Russians send a lot of people to the front, waves and waves of people, and they send them into battle, especially prisoners recruited by the Wagner group. And they don’t care if they die, as long as they grab a handful of land, take it away from the Ukrainians. And so we have to provide the most powerful weapon, the best weapon that we can provide, to destroy these groups, so that we can do it all at once. Of course, the head of the Wagner group won’t care, and Putin won’t care either. I watched how Putin was in Mariupol, and how he went to a man’s apartment, and behaved like some kind of gentleman, said: “Sorry, we didn’t want to bother you.” And I thought, ‘You don’t want to bother? Yeah, you killed people there! It just looked gross.
DG: As you mentioned recently, the International Criminal Court has issued an arrest warrant for Putin and the commissioner to his children. However, the United States does not recognize the jurisdiction of the ICC. Is this mandate important to the US government? And will the position of the American authorities vis-à-vis the ICC change because of this?
SK: I think there are concerns in the United States about the jurisdiction of the ICC. And Russia and China do not recognize this court either. But in any case, it is a stigma for Putin. He has a pretty bad reputation as it is, I don’t know if it could be even worse, but when he is wanted by an international organization as a war criminal by an international organization, especially an organization in The Hague, it is important. It is incredible, of course, that Medvedev said here that they could fire a hypersonic missile at The Hague. I guess this guy is completely crazy.
DG: Chinese leader Xi Jinping met with Putin in Moscow and they issued a joint statement urging, and I quote, “to stop measures that escalate tensions and prolong hostilities in order to avoid a further deterioration of the crisis in Ukraine until it phases out of control. China appears to support the Russian rhetoric that Moscow has used to justify its aggression. What do you think?
SK: China is more likely to have good economic relations with Russia than with anyone else. I mean they want to trade with Europe; they would like to trade with the United States, but especially with Europe. And they try to be on both sides. They can get all the wealth of Siberia, and if Putin leaves and Russia starts to disintegrate, China will lay claim to them. Xi is a tactical politician, like most politicians, and I guarantee you that if Putin falls, he won’t cry. He is acting in China’s interest, not in Russia’s interest, even now. And I would be surprised if he started supplying weapons to Russia. As they supply Russia with electronics. But it’s not a weapon.
