EXPLAINED: ‘Nuclear’ US Sanctions Bill vs. Russia – Five Things to Know

On paper the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 is one the most punishing sanctions bills ever considered by Congress against any country in US history, short of laws passed against countries the United States was in full-scale war with, like Germany and Japan during World War Two. In a key change from previous US sanctions policy targeting specific individuals and companies, the bill mandates US government blanket sanctions against most of the Russian government and its institutions, including senior political and military officials, state-owned enterprises and agencies, energy companies cooperating with the Russian state, and individuals and companies supporting Russia’s defense-industrial base.JOIN US ON TELEGRAMFollow our coverage of the war on the @Kyivpost_official. Russia’s “shadow fleet” of tankers and companies and persons facilitating it, and foreign persons and networks involved in sanctions evasion, are specifically named as potential subjects of broad-brush sanctions. The bill gives the US government wide authority to decide for itself what company or country is helping Russia, and to sanction anyone or anything the US government thinks is assisting Russia in its war effort against Ukraine, both directly and indirectly. Those targeted by sanction are effectively stripped of recourse to a US or international court; a lawsuit challenging an imposed sanction might be possible, but winning it almost certainly would not. Other Topics of Interest Russia Employs 25,000 North Koreans in Drone Production The Multilateral Sanctions Monitoring Team (MSMT) has found that up to 25,000 North Koreans are working at several facilities assembling Shahed and Geran drones. Penalties include up to 100% tariffs on countries buying Russian energy, provided they are among the top five purchasers of Russian crude oil or natural gas. These are, in order, China, India, Turkey, the EU and Japan. For purchasers of Russian goods other than energy, the tariff ceiling is up to up to 500 percent. The answer to that question comes down to how energetically the new sanctions would or would not be enforced by the US government. Theoretically, the sanctions would make Russian oil and gas toxic in most world markets because purchasing that product, directly or indirectly, would bring similarly or even more punishing US sanctions down on the purchaser. China and India particularly would be forced to choose which they want: access to cheap Russian energy or access to the US market and, potentially, any other market choosing not to trade with Russia because of the US sanctions threat. Outside the energy sector, the sanctions law if enforced would be disastrous for Russian war-making capacity because major producers of dual use technologies currently sold to Russia without much hindrance – think Chinese electronics and manufacturing equipment, Belarusian machine tools and communications gear and Emirates-sourced semiconductors and aviation components – would face potential US sanctions on their exports world-wide. This also would apply to banks, not just Russian ones but any financial institution world-wide adjudged by the US to be helping Russia attack Ukraine or just to evade US sanctions. But the sanctions bill’s sharpest bite probably is language allowing US law enforcers to decide themselves what company or country is helping Russia evade sanctions and enabling the US government to sanction those enablers directly, just like a Russian entity, without further ado. Chinese, Indian, Emirates, Greek and Turkish shipping and transportation companies – not just the paper registered business, but the actual corporation behind it, as determined by US law enforcement – that are currently helping Russia operate its shadow tanker fleet would probably stand to lose the most money, were the bill’s terms actually enforced against them. The US Constitution stipulates that a bill passed by both houses of Congress goes to the President, who has ten working days to decide whether to sign the bill or to veto it. In most cases a vetoed bill is returned to Congress with Presidential objections. If the President refuses either to sign a piece of legislation passed by Congress, or actively to veto it, after the ten-day period is over the bill becomes law anyway. Most analysts say this waiting period would end on Sept. 28. But, a critical loophole in that process is the Constitutional rule that, if one or both of the houses of Congress goes out of session, the ten-day rule doesn’t apply. Congress’ adjournment to go into recess, by historical precedent (which Trump might challenge) doesn’t halt the 10-day clock. But were either house of Congress to adjourn without intent of reconvening before new elections, then that – the term is “pocket veto” – would kill the bill. If Trump vetoed the bill and sent it back to Congress, then Congress if it had a 2/3 majority in both houses might vote on the bill again, approve it, and it would become law without the President’s signature. This is called an “override.” In votes this September the Senate approved the bill 86-11, well above the 2/3 override margin, while the House approved it 262-159, a solid 28 representatives short of the 290 of 450 votes needed for override. For the most part the House members opposed to the bill are hard core right wing MAGA Republicans who dislike Ukraine, support Russia and almost never depart from the party line. This means a Congressional override of a Trump veto, although not impossible, is unlikely. One interesting option for Trump would be to avoid choosing publicly between signing and vetoing the bill by cutting a deal with House leadership preventing the House from reconvening before November elections, which would make a pocket veto possible. The political price for that would be a stalled Congress giving his critics ammunition for the charge that the White House is blocking the business of government for political ends. However, a Congress unable to pass laws would likewise be unable to challenge White House moves leading up the elections and so might be judged politically worthwhile by Trump and his allies. Historically, the Trump administration position on Russian sanctions is that Russia should be the US’ friend and that the Kremlin deserves special favor because of the strong friendship between Trump and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin. Famously, at the outset of his second term, while announcing whopping US tariff hikes against practically every country on Earth, Russia was excepted. A Senate Democratic letter in August noted that the administration had largely paused existing Russia sanctions because, according to the White House, peace negotiations led by the US between Ukraine and Russia made necessary the “temporary halt” to most US sanctions on Russia. Perhaps tellingly, during those (now failed) negotiations, sharp hikes in US tariffs against Ukraine have remained in place. In late July the Trump administration seemed to signal a possible shift with an announcement that the White House supports the bill’s passage. At the time language in the bill draft had changed increasing Presidential authority to impose (and remove) tariffs, when part of national sanctions and foreign policy. This was followed by September reporting led by Wall Street Journal citing unnamed Trump officials stating Trump intends to sign the bill.However, in the same month Trump seemed to sanction Russian invasion of Ukraine and its occupation of Ukrainian territory by blaming his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky for allegedly stymying the peace process, by refusing to hand over Ukrainian territory and millions of people living there to Russian Federation control. Should he choose to employ them, President Trump has available to him powerful tools hard-wired into the bill that would allow him to undermine the effectiveness of the sanctions, and if he wished make them null and void. The simplest bypass would be for Trump simply to designate a facet of sanctions policy against Russia not useful for US national security. In that case Trump would be obliged neither to make public what was cancelled or why, and only partially obliged, through his subordinates, to explain what was done and why to Congressional oversight committees, which might criticize the Presidential decision but would have no means of changing it. Specific language in the bill clearly making the President the final deciding authority as regards tariffs linked to sanctions, effectively bypassing longstanding Constitutional statute mandating Congress not the President makes US tax and tariff law, gives Trump unprecedented authority to weaken or render tariffs on Russia null and void, if he wishes. Although it might not necessarily benefit Russia, from the White House point of view the bill also creates for the President the very useful weapon of being able to threaten almost any country on Earth with “Russia-related” and/or “Sanctions-evasion” sanctions, without having to justify it to the public or the targeted country. As the Chief Executive of the US government, Trump would become, were the bill to be passed into law, the senior US official responsible for enforcing it. Should Trump choose to order government agencies not to enforce portions of the sanction law, theoretically even illegally, by constitutional statute there is little that could be done to reverse that short of a court challenge probably rising to the Supreme Court as a test case on the limits of Presidential authority, or impeachment. Both those politically explosive processes, if actually set into motion, would probably last years. Although the other two branches of the US government, the courts and Congress, might unite and eventually create the legal grounds to force the President to carry out the terms of the sanctions bill he personally was opposed to enforcing, the much more likely outcome is that Trump’s term of office would run out before he might be obliged to do what the sanctions law stipulates.