By Jennifer Hansler and Kylie Atwood—April 6, 2020
For the first time in history, the US State Department has named a white supremacist organization as Specially Designated Global Terrorists.
Nathan Sales, the department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, announced Monday the designation of the Russian Imperial Movement (RIM) and three of its leaders: Stanislav Anatolyevich Vorobyev, Denis Valliullovich Gariev, and Nikolay Nikolayevich Trushchalov.
Sales described RIM as “a terrorist group that provides paramilitary-style training to neo-Nazis and white supremacists.”
“And it plays a prominent role in trying to rally like-minded Europeans and Americans into a common front against their perceived enemies,” he said.
“This is the first time the United States has ever designated white supremacist terrorists, illustrating how seriously this administration takes the threat,” Sales said.
Monday’s designation comes as officials have warned that the threat from white supremacist terror is on the rise at home and abroad and deadly attacks have claimed dozens of lives and wrought fear in communities around the globe.
Although the State Department doesn’t “have the authority to designate groups with a substantial connection to the United States,” Sales noted that the designation was meant to prevent the spread of RIM’s dangerous tactics to America.
Read more at CNN.
