US President Donald Trump has “given the green light” to a bipartisan bill on sanctions against Russia, US Senator Lindsey Graham said.
The document could come up for a vote as early as next week, he added.
“After a very productive meeting today with President Trump on a variety of issues, he gave the green light to a bipartisan sanctions bill against Russia that I’ve been working on for months with Senator Blumenthal and many others. It will be timely as Ukraine is making concessions for peace and Putin is only talking while continuing to kill innocents,” Graham wrote on social network X on the night of 8 January (Kiev time).
He said the bill would allow Trump to “punish those countries that buy cheap Russian oil while fuelling Putin’s war machine.”
“This bill will give President Trump tremendous leverage against countries like China, India and Brazil to incentivise them to stop buying cheap Russian oil that provides funding for Putin’s bloodshed against Ukraine. I look forward to a strong bipartisan vote, hopefully as early as next week,” the senator added.
There have been no new comments from the US president on the matter.
In May, Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said after a conversation with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Kiev that the US Senate may start considering a sanctions bill that has broad bipartisan support in the Senate. To pass the bill, it must be approved by the US Senate and House of Representatives and then signed by the president.
The bill envisages, among other things, the imposition of 500 per cent duties on imports from countries that buy Russian oil, gas, uranium and oil products.
Ukraine has repeatedly called on the West to tighten sanctions against Russia, accusing Moscow of dragging out negotiations to end the war.
Graham’s statement came amid talks aimed at ending Russia’s war in Ukraine, which have intensified since November. In particular, on 6 January, a “coalition of the willing” concluded talks in Paris on a plan to end the Russian-Ukrainian war and guarantees for Ukraine. The meeting was joined by the special representative of the US President Steve Whitkoff and Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
The meeting resulted in the release of the Paris Declaration on” credible security guarantees for a durable and lasting peace in Ukraine”, which, among other things, envisages the deployment of a multinational force in Ukraine after the cessation of hostilities “with the proposed support of the United States”.
Moscow has not yet expressed its willingness to make concessions and agree to a peace agreement with the security guarantees envisaged by Ukraine’s allies.