A group of 50 Republican and Democratic senators introduced a sanctions package to hit Russia and countries that buy its oil if President Vladimir Putin refuses to engage in good-faith ceasefire negotiations with Ukraine or breaches an eventual agreement.
The punishments would include a 500% tariff on imports from countries that buy Russian oil, petroleum products, natural gas or uranium, according to a draft of the bill seen by Bloomberg News. Other sanctions would also prohibit US citizens from buying Russian sovereign debt, according to the draft.
The congressional effort, if it passes, would give President Donald Trump additional leverage in his quest for a ceasefire. Over the weekend, he told NBC News that he was “pissed off” at Putin and threatened secondary tariffs on buyers of Russian oil if the Russian leader refused a ceasefire with Ukraine.
“We hope for peace but it has to be fair to Ukraine,” Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and one of the bill’s sponsors, said in an interview. “The reason there’s no ceasefire is Putin is playing for time and hoping he can make gains on the battlefield while diverting President Trump and the American people.”
The outlines of the sanctions were announced in a press release from Blumenthal and Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican. They said 50 Senators had signed on to the bill and companion legislation was being introduced in the House of Representatives by a bipartisan group of four lawmakers.
The package would also include a range of other restrictions such as prohibiting US financial institutions from investing in entities linked to the Russian government and sanctioning any country that has bought uranium sourced from Russia, according to the bill.
The proposal would go beyond the sweeping sanctions imposed on Russia over the last several years. It would likely provoke a confrontation with major customers of Russian energy, like India and China, and put Europe, which still depends on Russian natural gas, in a difficult position. While huge sectors of the Russian economy have been slapped with sanctions, its exports of liquefied natural gas to the continent have been allowed to continue.
The measure allows the president to grant temporary waivers if it “is in the national security interests of the United States.”
Both Russia and Ukraine said on Tuesday that they had given the US lists of violations to an agreement to halt attacks on energy infrastructure, though European officials that the limited ceasefire had not gone into effect yet.
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters that he and Defense Minister Andrey Belousov briefed Putin at an unscheduled security council meeting about Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure and that he had passed on a list of those violations to US officials.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy also said late on Tuesday that Kyiv was regarding Russian strikes against energy targets with Washington.
Russian officials have offered the prospect of business opportunities in their country if an agreement to end the war that began with Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 can be reached. Trump said in February that “it’s a great thing if we settle — it’s great for Russia too, because we can do deals there.”
On Monday, Trump appeared to dial back his criticism of Putin, saying in the Oval Office that “I want to make sure that he follows through, and I think he will.” The president added that “I don’t want to go secondary tariffs on his oil, but I think, you know, something I would do if I thought he wasn’t doing the job.”
US officials have become frustrated by Moscow’s foot-dragging in the negotiations after Russian officials said an agreed-upon maritime ceasefire in the Black Sea was contingent on sanctions relief, in contradiction of a US statement from the time, Bloomberg reported last week.
Both Russian and Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday that drones attacked their territory overnight.
