LONDON — Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Friday thanked President Donald Trump for signing into legislation a invoice championed by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, which permits for the expansion of sanctions on Russia associated to Moscow’s ongoing full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Trump signed the invoice on Friday, the White Home mentioned in an announcement, after the laws handed each the Home and Senate with robust bipartisan backing. The laws “authorizes and expands statutory sanctions, tariffs and prohibitions on Russia and extends current sanctions on Iran,” the White Home mentioned.
The invoice’s passage happened two months after Graham died suddenly following a tear in his aorta. Graham had lengthy been an advocate of U.S. assist for Kyiv and extra stringent measures on Russia and the regime headed by President Vladimir Putin. In 2024, Russia’s state monetary monitoring company added Graham to its record of alleged “terrorists and extremists.”
In a publish to Telegram on Friday night time, Zelenskyy thanked Trump for signing what he known as “critically essential laws,” extending his due to “all of the senators and members of the Home of Representatives who supported it.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is pictured in the course of the funeral of King Harald V of Norway on Sept. 9, 2026 in Oslo, Norway.
Chris Jackson/Getty Photographs
“When Lindsey Graham was right here in Ukraine, he would at all times speak about how essential it was to not ease strain on Russia, to strengthen sanctions and search a path to peace,” Zelenskyy wrote.
“Specifically, in these capitals that select to purchase Russian oil, present monetary companies to Russia, and permit Russian corporations linked to Putin and the conflict to interact in regular enterprise relations in different nations,” he added.
“One of the best ways to honor Lindsey’s reminiscence might be to implement the provisions of this legislation totally and swiftly. And the perfect reward for everybody serving to us put strain on Russia to finish its conflict might be peace. Peace — and an finish to all the issues and challenges this conflict has introduced,” the Ukrainian president wrote.
“Peace comes by power. Calm comes by safety. And the perfect assure of safety is resolve,” he added.
The laws permits for major and secondary sanctions on Russia and different nations that assist Moscow in its invasion of Ukraine, now in its fifth yr with no signal of a breakthrough in peace talks.
The sanctions goal Russian political officers and oligarchs, banks and monetary establishments, and Russia’s so-called “shadow fleet” — a whole lot of tankers used to evade sanctions — in keeping with the invoice.
The laws permits for the president to impose tariffs, however limits the scope of these tariffs to the 5 largest importers of Russian crude oil or gasoline and the highest 5 nations that support Russia’s vitality sanctions evasion.
It additionally features a provision to forestall a lapse in sanction authority that restricts funding for Iran’s vitality and weapons sectors.
Firefighters work to extinguish hearth in multistorey administrative constructing following a Russian drone assault in Odesa, Ukraine, on Sept. 18, 2026.
Oleksandr Gimanov/AFP by way of Getty Photographs
Russian officers hit out on the new laws, with Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov telling reporters on Friday, “The introduction of any further sanctions by the US will certainly complicate efforts to discover a peaceable settlement in Ukraine.”
Dmitry Medvedev — the previous Russian president and prime minister now serving because the deputy chairman of the nation’s Safety Council — described the laws for instance of “Russophobic outrages” in a publish to his Telegram channel on Saturday morning, earlier than referring to Graham as a “lifeless terrorist.”
The invoice handed the Home by a 262 to 159 vote. The laws break up Home Democrats, with 58 voting in favor whereas 152 voted in opposition to. Seven Republican lawmakers joined the dissenting Democrats.
The Senate accredited the measure final month with overwhelming bipartisan assist by a vote of 86 to 11.
Prime Home Democratic leaders, together with Minority Chief Hakeem Jeffries, defined why they voted in opposition to the sanctions invoice, saying it “provides extraordinary energy to Donald Trump.”
ABC Information’ Michelle Stoddart, Rashid Haddou and Lauren Peller contributed to this report.
