Senate advances Graham bill to put harsher sanctions on Russia, Iran
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The Senate, in a rare bipartisan vote Tuesday night, advanced a bill that would impose harsher sanctions on Russia and buyers of Russian oil and gas than the U.S. has previously enforced and extend existing sanctions on Iran, aiming to economically squeeze the two countries amid ongoing military conflicts.
The bill, named for its co-author, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has had strong backing from members in both parties for over a year as a way to further penalize Russia over its war in Ukraine. President Trump only recently gave the green light to a version of the legislation, and requested that it include increased sanctions on Iran.
It advanced on an 86-12 vote.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the co-author of the sanctions bill, said the measure is intended to punish China and India for financing Russia’s war with their purchases of Russian energy.
“To be really blunt, China and India are the main culprits here,” he told reporters Tuesday night.
“They purchase the vast majority of oil and gas. They are fueling Russia’s war machine and they are doing us no favors anywhere else in the world.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Armed Services Committee, spoke on the Senate floor in support of the legislation earlier in the evening.
“If we’ve learned anything about the Russian despot Vladimir Putin over the course of this war, it’s that the slaughter of civilians and even his own Russian troops gives him no pause,” Wicker said. “He disregards human life. But he does prize the strength of his war machine, and for this, Putin relies on his energy sales and that’s what we’re getting to with this bill.”
The Senate approval came immediately after a visit to the Capitol from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and a few hours after a memorial service for Graham. Senators had already come to a bipartisan agreement on the bill, with the Iran sanctions included, according to a press release earlier in the day.
“We are proud to announce an agreement on legislation to stop purchasers of Russian oil and gas from fueling Putin’s war machine and to continue restricting the Iranian regime’s ability to support terrorism and build its nuclear program,” a bipartisan group wrote.
The bill did have critics, though. Some Democrats argued the text legitimized Trump’s tariff authority after it was rejected by the Supreme Court, and expressed concerns that the sanctions outlined in the bill are weak.
Ten Democrats voted against the bill, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who causes with Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also voted no.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who voted against advancing the measure, spoke on the floor just after the vote to defend the legislation but call for it to be further amended to limit the tariff authority given to the executive branch. Welch said Graham would have been able to convince Trump to use the power narrowly, but without him, the bill’s language must be more specific.
“There is a fatal absence of specificity as to what countries could be considered facilitators, or what conduct, or the extent of that conduct that could constitute being a facilitator,” Welch said. “In effect, this would be a blanket delegation of congressional tariff authority to the executive, all in the name of targeting a facilitator that the executive could target and tariff any country for any reason.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told The Hill before the vote that he hoped to make improvements to the bill down the road, although he ended up voting for the procedural motion.
“We have to hold Putin to account,” Warnock said. “But this bill in its current form gives the president a wide margin in the continuing advancement of his tariff regime, and I don’t have much evidence that he’s going to do what we need him to do.”
The sanctions will target Russian officials, oligarchs, their family members and other individuals supporting Russia against Ukraine as well as banks, financial institutions and the Russian “Shadow Fleet,” a clandestine network of ships Russia uses to transport crude oil and evade sanctions.
It also allows Trump to impose targeted tariffs on imports from the top five importers of Russian oil and gas, which targets China, and the top five countries that help Russia evade oil sanctions. A new provision extends a sanction authority for Iran’s financial and weapons industries, which was enacted in 1996 and was set to expire at the end of this year.
Graham’s death earlier this month lent the bill renewed momentum, along with signals from Trump that he has shifted support toward Kyiv in light of continued aggression from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Lawmakers say the bill is also a way to honor Graham, who was one of the most staunch supporters of Ukraine in Congress.
Tuesday’s Senate vote is just the first in a series the upper chamber would need to take before sending the bill to the House, but the strong bipartisan result is expected to give it the momentum to pass before the extended August recess.
The lower chamber would then take it up when lawmakers return from recess in September. House Democrats, whose support will almost certainly be needed to pass the measure, have expressed some of the same concerns as their Senate colleagues.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), one of the bill’s authors and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she’s planning to work with Democrats in the House to bring them around and address their concerns.
“I think we have time to continue to engage them, to let them know there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what’s in this narrowly constructed bill, because people are still looking at the bill that was first introduced. So I think we need to provide that background information,” she said.
“We need to talk to folks about what their concerns are, and we’ve got some time to do that, because the House is not coming back for a while.”
While the bill is expected to gain the votes it needs, Democrat opposition risks deepening partisanship on U.S. policy toward Ukraine. In June, Democrats passed a separate bill offering military support to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, called the Ukraine Support Act, with only four Republicans.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the author of that bill, has argued against the Graham Russia sanctions bill.
“This is not so much a sanctions bill as it is a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs,” he said shortly after the bill’s introduction.
“The sanctions the bill does contain are entirely at Donald Trump’s discretion, and he has made clear repeatedly that he would rather waive sanctions on Russia than impose new ones.”
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗ · Axios ↗
The Senate, in a rare bipartisan vote Tuesday night, advanced a bill that would impose harsher sanctions on Russia and buyers of Russian oil and gas than the U.S. has previously…
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
Skip to content
The Senate, in a rare bipartisan vote Tuesday night, advanced a bill that would impose harsher sanctions on Russia and buyers of Russian oil and gas than the U.S. has previously enforced and extend existing sanctions on Iran, aiming to economically squeeze the two countries amid ongoing military conflicts.
The bill, named for its co-author, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has had strong backing from members in both parties for over a year as a way to further penalize Russia over its war in Ukraine. President Trump only recently gave the green light to a version of the legislation, and requested that it include increased sanctions on Iran.
It advanced on an 86-12 vote.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the co-author of the sanctions bill, said the measure is intended to punish China and India for financing Russia’s war with their purchases of Russian energy.
“To be really blunt, China and India are the main culprits here,” he told reporters Tuesday night.
“They purchase the vast majority of oil and gas. They are fueling Russia’s war machine and they are doing us no favors anywhere else in the world.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Armed Services Committee, spoke on the Senate floor in support of the legislation earlier in the evening.
“If we’ve learned anything about the Russian despot Vladimir Putin over the course of this war, it’s that the slaughter of civilians and even his own Russian troops gives him no pause,” Wicker said. “He disregards human life. But he does prize the strength of his war machine, and for this, Putin relies on his energy sales and that’s what we’re getting to with this bill.”
The Senate approval came immediately after a visit to the Capitol from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and a few hours after a memorial service for Graham. Senators had already come to a bipartisan agreement on the bill, with the Iran sanctions included, according to a press release earlier in the day.
“We are proud to announce an agreement on legislation to stop purchasers of Russian oil and gas from fueling Putin’s war machine and to continue restricting the Iranian regime’s ability to support terrorism and build its nuclear program,” a bipartisan group wrote.
The bill did have critics, though. Some Democrats argued the text legitimized Trump’s tariff authority after it was rejected by the Supreme Court, and expressed concerns that the sanctions outlined in the bill are weak.
Ten Democrats voted against the bill, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who causes with Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also voted no.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who voted against advancing the measure, spoke on the floor just after the vote to defend the legislation but call for it to be further amended to limit the tariff authority given to the executive branch. Welch said Graham would have been able to convince Trump to use the power narrowly, but without him, the bill’s language must be more specific.
“There is a fatal absence of specificity as to what countries could be considered facilitators, or what conduct, or the extent of that conduct that could constitute being a facilitator,” Welch said. “In effect, this would be a blanket delegation of congressional tariff authority to the executive, all in the name of targeting a facilitator that the executive could target and tariff any country for any reason.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told The Hill before the vote that he hoped to make improvements to the bill down the road, although he ended up voting for the procedural motion.
“We have to hold Putin to account,” Warnock said. “But this bill in its current form gives the president a wide margin in the continuing advancement of his tariff regime, and I don’t have much evidence that he’s going to do what we need him to do.”
The sanctions will target Russian officials, oligarchs, their family members and other individuals supporting Russia against Ukraine as well as banks, financial institutions and the Russian “Shadow Fleet,” a clandestine network of ships Russia uses to transport crude oil and evade sanctions.
It also allows Trump to impose targeted tariffs on imports from the top five importers of Russian oil and gas, which targets China, and the top five countries that help Russia evade oil sanctions. A new provision extends a sanction authority for Iran’s financial and weapons industries, which was enacted in 1996 and was set to expire at the end of this year.
Graham’s death earlier this month lent the bill renewed momentum, along with signals from Trump that he has shifted support toward Kyiv in light of continued aggression from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Lawmakers say the bill is also a way to honor Graham, who was one of the most staunch supporters of Ukraine in Congress.
Tuesday’s Senate vote is just the first in a series the upper chamber would need to take before sending the bill to the House, but the strong bipartisan result is expected to give it the momentum to pass before the extended August recess.
The lower chamber would then take it up when lawmakers return from recess in September. House Democrats, whose support will almost certainly be needed to pass the measure, have expressed some of the same concerns as their Senate colleagues.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), one of the bill’s authors and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she’s planning to work with Democrats in the House to bring them around and address their concerns.
“I think we have time to continue to engage them, to let them know there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what’s in this narrowly constructed bill, because people are still looking at the bill that was first introduced. So I think we need to provide that background information,” she said.
“We need to talk to folks about what their concerns are, and we’ve got some time to do that, because the House is not coming back for a while.”
While the bill is expected to gain the votes it needs, Democrat opposition risks deepening partisanship on U.S. policy toward Ukraine. In June, Democrats passed a separate bill offering military support to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, called the Ukraine Support Act, with only four Republicans.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the author of that bill, has argued against the Graham Russia sanctions bill.
“This is not so much a sanctions bill as it is a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs,” he said shortly after the bill’s introduction.
“The sanctions the bill does contain are entirely at Donald Trump’s discretion, and he has made clear repeatedly that he would rather waive sanctions on Russia than impose new ones.”
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗ · Axios ↗
Skip to content
The Senate, in a rare bipartisan vote Tuesday night, advanced a bill that would impose harsher sanctions on Russia and buyers of Russian oil and gas than the U.S. has previously enforced and extend existing sanctions on Iran, aiming to economically squeeze the two countries amid ongoing military conflicts.
The bill, named for its co-author, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), has had strong backing from members in both parties for over a year as a way to further penalize Russia over its war in Ukraine. President Trump only recently gave the green light to a version of the legislation, and requested that it include increased sanctions on Iran.
It advanced on an 86-12 vote.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), the co-author of the sanctions bill, said the measure is intended to punish China and India for financing Russia’s war with their purchases of Russian energy.
“To be really blunt, China and India are the main culprits here,” he told reporters Tuesday night.
“They purchase the vast majority of oil and gas. They are fueling Russia’s war machine and they are doing us no favors anywhere else in the world.”
Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.), chair of the Armed Services Committee, spoke on the Senate floor in support of the legislation earlier in the evening.
“If we’ve learned anything about the Russian despot Vladimir Putin over the course of this war, it’s that the slaughter of civilians and even his own Russian troops gives him no pause,” Wicker said. “He disregards human life. But he does prize the strength of his war machine, and for this, Putin relies on his energy sales and that’s what we’re getting to with this bill.”
The Senate approval came immediately after a visit to the Capitol from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, and a few hours after a memorial service for Graham. Senators had already come to a bipartisan agreement on the bill, with the Iran sanctions included, according to a press release earlier in the day.
“We are proud to announce an agreement on legislation to stop purchasers of Russian oil and gas from fueling Putin’s war machine and to continue restricting the Iranian regime’s ability to support terrorism and build its nuclear program,” a bipartisan group wrote.
The bill did have critics, though. Some Democrats argued the text legitimized Trump’s tariff authority after it was rejected by the Supreme Court, and expressed concerns that the sanctions outlined in the bill are weak.
Ten Democrats voted against the bill, along with Sen. Bernie Sanders (Vt.), an independent who causes with Democrats. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) also voted no.
Sen. Peter Welch (D-Vt.), who voted against advancing the measure, spoke on the floor just after the vote to defend the legislation but call for it to be further amended to limit the tariff authority given to the executive branch. Welch said Graham would have been able to convince Trump to use the power narrowly, but without him, the bill’s language must be more specific.
“There is a fatal absence of specificity as to what countries could be considered facilitators, or what conduct, or the extent of that conduct that could constitute being a facilitator,” Welch said. “In effect, this would be a blanket delegation of congressional tariff authority to the executive, all in the name of targeting a facilitator that the executive could target and tariff any country for any reason.”
Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.) told The Hill before the vote that he hoped to make improvements to the bill down the road, although he ended up voting for the procedural motion.
“We have to hold Putin to account,” Warnock said. “But this bill in its current form gives the president a wide margin in the continuing advancement of his tariff regime, and I don’t have much evidence that he’s going to do what we need him to do.”
The sanctions will target Russian officials, oligarchs, their family members and other individuals supporting Russia against Ukraine as well as banks, financial institutions and the Russian “Shadow Fleet,” a clandestine network of ships Russia uses to transport crude oil and evade sanctions.
It also allows Trump to impose targeted tariffs on imports from the top five importers of Russian oil and gas, which targets China, and the top five countries that help Russia evade oil sanctions. A new provision extends a sanction authority for Iran’s financial and weapons industries, which was enacted in 1996 and was set to expire at the end of this year.
Graham’s death earlier this month lent the bill renewed momentum, along with signals from Trump that he has shifted support toward Kyiv in light of continued aggression from Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Lawmakers say the bill is also a way to honor Graham, who was one of the most staunch supporters of Ukraine in Congress.
Tuesday’s Senate vote is just the first in a series the upper chamber would need to take before sending the bill to the House, but the strong bipartisan result is expected to give it the momentum to pass before the extended August recess.
The lower chamber would then take it up when lawmakers return from recess in September. House Democrats, whose support will almost certainly be needed to pass the measure, have expressed some of the same concerns as their Senate colleagues.
Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), one of the bill’s authors and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said she’s planning to work with Democrats in the House to bring them around and address their concerns.
“I think we have time to continue to engage them, to let them know there’s a lot of misunderstanding about what’s in this narrowly constructed bill, because people are still looking at the bill that was first introduced. So I think we need to provide that background information,” she said.
“We need to talk to folks about what their concerns are, and we’ve got some time to do that, because the House is not coming back for a while.”
While the bill is expected to gain the votes it needs, Democrat opposition risks deepening partisanship on U.S. policy toward Ukraine. In June, Democrats passed a separate bill offering military support to Ukraine and sanctions on Russia, called the Ukraine Support Act, with only four Republicans.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-NY), the author of that bill, has argued against the Graham Russia sanctions bill.
“This is not so much a sanctions bill as it is a massive backdoor authority for President Trump to impose more tariffs,” he said shortly after the bill’s introduction.
“The sanctions the bill does contain are entirely at Donald Trump’s discretion, and he has made clear repeatedly that he would rather waive sanctions on Russia than impose new ones.”
Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Read the full story at The Hill ↗ · Axios ↗
This lens runs the verified story through Cinnamon's AI — wired in the next step.
- The Senate, in a rare bipartisan vote Tuesday night, advanced a bill that would impose harsher sanctions on Russia and buyers of Russian oil and gas than the U.S.
- has previously…