published an editorial accusing the Qatari regime of funding the Al-Nusra Front, a U.S. government designated terrorist organization. The Financial Times noted Emir Hamad's visit to Gaza and meeting with Hamas, another internationally designated terrorist organization. Spanish football club FC Barcelona were coming under increasing pressure to tear up their £125m shirt sponsorship contract with the Qatar Foundation after claims the so-called charitable trust finances Hamas. The fresh controversy follows claims made by the Spanish newspaper El Mundo that the Qatar Foundation had given money to cleric Yusuf al Qaradawi who is alleged to be an advocate of terrorism, wife beating and antisemitism. In January 2013 French politicians again accused the Qatari Government of giving material support to Islamist groups in Mali and the French newspaper Le Canard enchaîné quoted an unnamed source in French military intelligence saying that "The MNLA [secular Tuareg separatists], al Qaeda-linked Ansar Dine and Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa have all received cash from Doha." In March 2014, the then Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has accused the Qatari government of sponsoring Sunni insurgents fighting against Iraqi soldiers in western Anbar province. In October 2014, it was revealed that a former Qatari Interior Ministry official, Salim Hasan Khalifa Rashid al-Kuwari, had been named by the U.S. Department of the Treasury as an al Qaeda financier, with allegations that he gave hundreds of thousands of dollars to the terrorist group. Kuwari worked for the civil defense department of the Interior Ministry in 2009, two years before he was designated for his support of al Qaeda. A number of wealthy Qataris are accused of sponsoring the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. In response to public criticism over Qatari connections to ISIL, the government has pushed back and denied supporting the group. Russia Alexander J. Motyl, professor of political science at Rutgers University argues that Russia's direct and indirect involvement in the violence in eastern Ukraine qualifies as a state-sponsored terrorism, and that those involved qualify as "terrorist groups." Russia's behaviour towards its neighbours was alleged by Dalia Grybauskaitė, the President of Lithuania to be evidence of state terrorism. Grybauskaitė stated that "Russia demonstrates the qualities of a terrorist state." During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian Defence Minister Oleksii Reznikov defined Russian forces as "not military – they are terrorists, representatives of the terrorist state and this mark will be with