Ukraine Parliament Submits Bill Calling On Kyiv To Designate IRGC

Ukrainian lawmakers presented a bill on Monday calling on Kyiv to designate Iran’s Revolutionary Guards as a terrorist organization.

The bill is sponsored by dozens of Ukrainian parliamentarians, including the head of the Verkhovna Rada’s foreign affairs committee, Oleksandr Merezhko.

Israel and the US have been urging their allies to list the IRGC as a terrorist group. In mid-May, a bipartisan group of US congresspeople urged Washington’s allies– namely the UK, Australia, Canada, and India -- to swiftly act and officially join Washington in labeling the IRGC in its entirety.

The move in Ukraine has been lauded by several Israeli officials, such as the country’s ambassador to Ukraine, Michael Brodsky, who said, “Iran poses a clear threat to Ukraine, Israel, and the whole world.”

Washington designated the IRGC as a foreign terrorist group in 2019 under the Trump administration as relations with Iran plummeted following Washington’s withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal. Tehran responded at the time by designating the US military as a terrorist group.

The Ukrainian action came only a few days after the Swedish parliament unanimously voted to designate the IRGC. It swiftly followed the execution of Swedish-Iranian Habib Chaab (Asyud) which saw Sweden's Ministry of Foreign Affairs summon Iran's chargé d'affaires in protest of the execution, one of hundreds since the start of the year.

Earlier on Monday, the UK Defense Ministry said in an intelligence update that during May 2023, Russia launched over 300 Iranian Shahed suicide drones against Ukraine, describing it as“its most intense use of this weapon system to date.”