After being stuck for more than a year in legislative purgatory, the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s legislation mandating sweeping sanctions on Russia is one big step closer to becoming law. The bill easily passed a procedural vote in the Senate this week and is expected to pass the full Senate with a large bipartisan majority later this week.
If the companion bill passes the House of Representatives later this year—as ample support suggests it will—the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia Act of 2026 will mark a rebirth of Republican support for Ukraine after more than four years of war with Russia, and it would be the first comprehensive U.S. sanctions package on Moscow in Trump’s second term. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, in Washington this week for Graham’s funeral and talks with U.S. President Donald Trump, was present in the Senate for the first vote and called the legislation a “big signal for Europe, a big signal for Ukraine.”
After being stuck for more than a year in legislative purgatory, the late U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham’s legislation mandating sweeping sanctions on Russia is one big step closer to becoming law. The bill easily passed a procedural vote in the Senate this week and is expected to pass the full Senate with a large bipartisan majority later this week.
