The U.S. Senate passed a long-delayed bill aimed at curtailing Russian revenue by targeting the country’s largest oil and gas buyers. The legislation, stalled in Congress since April 2025, introduces tariffs on energy imports from the world’s top five purchasers of Russian hydrocarbons. This move comes as the war between Russia and Ukraine enters its sixth year.
The bill shifts from a previous plan that would have imposed 500% tariffs on all countries importing Russian energy. The revised version sets a 100% tariff on the five largest buyers, including China, India, and Turkey, which are now the top purchasers of Russian oil and gas. The EU and Turkey also rank among the top buyers of Russian natural gas.
The bill includes a list of targeted financial and political figures
The bill also names Russian President Vladimir Putin and senior officials as sanctioned individuals. It targets major Russian financial institutions like Sberbank, Gazprombank, and the Central Bank, aiming to isolate Moscow’s banking system from international markets.
State-owned companies and foreign entities that back Russia’s defense industry will also face sanctions. The bill includes provisions targeting the so-called shadow fleet, which Russia uses to export oil beyond the reach of Western sanctions.
Negotiations and delays shaped the final bill
The legislation came out of negotiations between the White House and late Senator Lindsey Graham, who had worked closely with the Trump administration to secure support for the bill before his death on July 11. The bill’s final form reflects compromises and shifts in U.S. policy toward Russia’s war.
The Senate is expected to vote on the legislation on August 7. The White House has not yet announced whether it will sign the bill into law.
The bipartisan legislation, which passed the Senate 86-11, would allow U.S. President Donald Trump to set tariffs of up to 500% on Russian imports, including gas and oil. It would also penalise countries that continue to buy Russian oil, gas and other exports, allowing Trump to impose tariffs of up to 100% on goods from major purchasers of Russian oil and gas, including countries such as China and India. U.S. sanctions would also expand to target older, reflagged oil tankers that Russia uses to circumvent existing U.S. sanctions on Russian oil and energy revenues.
The legislation now heads to the House of Representatives, though a vote there will not take place until at least early September due to the congressional summer recess. If adopted into law, Putin himself would be among those targeted by the sanctions, as well as other top officials. The negotiated bill also includes waiver authority for the president, allowing the White House to waive sanctions or restrictions if the president certifies to Congress that the waiver is in the national interest.
The show of force from the Senate is the most substantial move yet during Trump’s second term to shift the dynamic of the more than four-year war. Congress has struggled to ensure U.S. funding and munitions flows to Ukraine, but Trump has given a nod to the sanctions package, putting pressure for the House to take it up for a vote and send it to the White House for his signature. The bill was named after the late Senator Lindsey Graham, who died on 11 July after spending more than a year building support for it. Shortly before his death, Graham announced he had reached an agreement with the White House on a revised version of the text, including the extension of existing sanctions authority aimed at restricting funding for Iran's energy and weapons sectors.
The measure, renamed the Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia Act in honor of the late senator’s work on the issue, was approved by an 86-11 vote. The bill would impose new sanctions and visa bans on Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, and top military commanders, as well as put tariffs of up to 500% on the country’s exports. It would also allow Donald Trump to impose levies of up to 100% on goods from countries that are the top five importers of Russian oil and gas. The proposal was a top priority for Graham, a Republican senator from South Carolina who spent the final days of his life working to advance it. But the effort had became mired in months of negotiations between the White House and Senate leadership. After Graham’s sudden death last month at the age of 71 following a trip to Kyiv, party leaders announced an agreement to get the bill through the chamber and honor his legacy as an ally of Ukraine. The Senate took the first step toward advancing it last month, on the day of Graham’s funeral, with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Ukraine’s president, watching from the chamber.
“This bill forces those primary countries keeping Russia’s economy afloat to make a simple yet critical choice – a choice between doing business with America or buying cheap Russian energy,” said Darline Graham, the late senator’s sister who was appointed to his seat after his death. She added: “This legislation tells Russia’s customers that the United States of America will not sit by while they fund Putin’s assault.”
The United States Senate has passed an aggressive sanctions package targeting Russia’s energy revenues amid its ongoing invasion of Ukraine. The legislation passed on Friday, dubbed the “Lindsey O Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026”, sets 100 percent tariffs on major nations importing Russian oil and gas. It further targets clandestine maritime networks used to evade Western embargoes.
The Senate voted 86–11 to pass the bill, which now heads to the House of Representatives. A vote in the 435-seat lower chamber will not take place until at least early September due to the congressional summer recess.
Republican Jim Risch, ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the bill could “finally bring Russia to the negotiating table and end this conflict between Russia and Ukraine”. He added it would “make a decisive impact that goes beyond what can be achieved on the battlefield. It will cut off the flow of cash that powers Putin’s war machine.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy welcomed the move, stating “real, strong American pressure and sanctions against Russia are what will help the most” to bring “this insane Russian war against our independence and our people to an end”. In a post on the social media platform X, Zelenskyy explicitly extended his gratitude across political lines, noting that Ukraine deeply appreciates the continuous support “from both parties and the entire American people”.
The bill was named after Senator Lindsey Graham, the Republican senator who died on July 11 and who had strongly advocated for new sanctions against Moscow amid its invasion of Ukraine. The day before his death, Graham, along with a bipartisan group of senators, announced they had secured the White House’s approval to pass new sanctions on Russian hydrocarbons.
The Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, had previously condemned the legislation. In a statement last month, it pointed to knock-on energy constraints from the US-Israel war on Iran. It added that “with an impending energy crisis and rising gas prices on the eve of the [US] midterm elections, sanctioning Russia and its trading partners… would be extremely counterproductive for the United States”.