The US Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 on August 7 by a vote of 86 to 11, sending a sanctions package that had been stalled since 2025 to the House [1]. The 86 yes votes and 11 no votes add up to 97 senators casting a vote; the remaining three members of the 100-seat Senate did not vote. A margin that lopsided clears the two-thirds bar that would be needed to override a presidential veto, which is the practical measure of how much room the bill has to survive the rest of its path.
The legislation reaches beyond a symbolic rebuke. It authorizes tariffs of up to 100 percent on the five largest buyers of Russian energy and on the five countries most involved in evading oil sanctions, and it mandates sanctions on Vladimir Putin, senior Russian officials, the Central Bank, Sberbank, and Gazprombank [1]. It also targets the shadow fleet of tankers that moves Russian oil around existing restrictions and the Chinese support flowing into Russia's defense industry [1].
The design is meant to make the pressure adjustable rather than fixed. The list of targeted buyers is reviewed every 180 days, and countries that import less than 15 percent of Russia's gas exports are exempt [1]. That structure is what gives the bill its reach and its risk at the same time: the countries large enough to land on a top-five buyer list are, by definition, major economies, and a 100 percent tariff is a cost that would register on their trade with the United States before it registered in Moscow.
Senator Jeanne Shaheen tied the delay directly to the war. "Every day this legislation waits is another day Putin profits from energy sales to buy rockets, drones, and weapons to kill Ukrainians," she said [1]. Her framing captures the case supporters have made for more than a year: that Russia's oil and gas revenue is the engine of its military spending, and that cutting into it is the most direct economic lever Congress has.
The vote does not make any of this law. The bill now goes to the House, which is on recess until September [1]. Until the House takes it up and passes it, the tariffs, the mandatory sanctions, and the shadow-fleet provisions remain authorizations on paper rather than enforceable measures. A veto-proof Senate vote is a real signal of where that chamber stands, but it is only one half of Congress, and the half that must act next has already left town.
