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In a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky at the NATO summit in Turkey this month, Sen. Lindsey Graham had one request.
The South Carolina Republican asked Zelensky, who was speaking later that day with President Donald Trump, to promote the senator's bill to harden sanctions on Russia's wartime economy, multiple U.S. officials familiar with the meeting said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the private session.
The senator traveled to Kiev days later, where he received the news that the White House was backing the bill. To celebrate, Graham called Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), his longtime partner on the legislation.
″I've never seen him so exuberant," Blumenthal said in an interview. "He said to me: ‘This is a big effing deal. We all did good.'"
Lawmakers and officials familiar with the push to secure a deal on the Russia sanctions legislation described it as a memorial to Graham's tenacity. The senator abruptly died of a heart condition shortly after returning from Ukraine, but up until the final hours of his life, he was working on legislation that took more than a year to negotiate. Multiple colleagues said the bill would have failed without him.
"We didn't have a lot of confidence that it was even possible," said Olha Stefanishyna, Ukraine's ambassador to Washington until earlier this month. "Senator Graham's persistence and leadership brought everyone to this point."
On Tuesday, the Senate voted 86-12 to take up the package, which would allow the administration to impose up to 100 percent tariffs on the top five purchasers of Russian oil and natural gas, among other penalties.
It would also extend sanctions on Iran after a late push from the Trump administration. The White House said it supported the levies against Tehran but otherwise declined to comment on Graham's efforts to move the legislation.
Supporters have framed the bill as a high point for U.S. support for Ukraine under the second Trump administration, which has vacillated in its support for Kiev and Zelensky. Many lawmakers have argue the financial penalties could help force Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a settlement to end his full-scale invasion, now in its fifth year.
Zelensky pressed for lawmakers to pass the legislation while meeting with the Senate on Tuesday night after attending Graham's funeral.
"It's not only about money," Zelensky told reporters Tuesday, before watching the bill advance inside the Senate chamber. He called the legislation a "big signal" of U.S. support for Ukraine and Europe.
The Biden administration imposed multiple rounds of sanctions on Russia, intended to cleave Moscow from the global financial system and cap its oil profits. Despite punishing the Russian economy, the penalties have not stopped the Kremlin from continuing its war effort.
A spokesperson for Graham said the senator wanted to work on a bill that would put much more intense pressure on Russia's economy.
"We need something with teeth, and we need something big," the spokesperson said, describing the senator's vision. "He called it ‘the sanctions bill from hell.'"
During his campaign, Trump repeatedly promised to settle the conflict within a day and began cutting U.S. support for Ukraine immediately after returning to office. In a disastrous meeting at the Oval Office last February, Trump accused Zelensky of not showing sufficient gratitude for American assistance and expelled the Ukrainian delegation from the White House.
Lawmakers and aides said the meeting increased the significance of Graham and Blumenthal's sanctions bill, which became an emblem of Congress's bipartisan support for Ukraine. The legislation initially would have allowed the administration to spike 500 percent tariffs on purchasers of Russian uranium and energy. It quickly received the backing of 85 senators, an almost unheard-of total in a polarized Congress.
But the bill stalled without support from the White House and as Democrats wavered over granting Trump more authority to restrict trade, following the president's "Liberation Day" tariffs on countries around the world last spring.
By early this year, some lawmakers began to give up on the legislation and instead pursued other packages meant to halt Russia's shadow fleet of illicit tankers and send Ukraine more security assistance.
Multiple officials said one turning point came after a group of lawmakers led by Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-New Hampshire) visited Ukraine in February.
"We love all your bills," said one U.S. official involved in the negotiations, speaking on the condition of anonymity to describe the message from Ukrainian officials. "But we need something."
Lawmakers and staff members on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee grew more involved in the talks over the coming months, as Graham continued to lobby Trump.
"If we were going to get through both houses of Congress, we probably needed some support from the White House," Shaheen said in an interview. "He had the best relationship" with the president.
By the time of the NATO summit in Ankara, Turkey, multiple officials said, the U.S. Treasury Department was the last holdout on agreeing to the bill within the administration, concerned about the potential impact on the U.S. economy.
At a dinner hosted by U.S Ambassador to Turkey Tom Barrack - with a harpist playing in the background and at a residence overlooking the Ankara skyline - Shaheen approached Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.
"I laid out the case for why I thought it was so critical that we do this," Shaheen said. "He was very responsive and said we will get you somebody to work with. We will get this done."
The Treasury Department dropped its opposition by the end of the week. Shortly after, the senators sponsoring the legislation released a statement announcing the Trump administration had agreed to support the bill.
A spokesperson for Bessent
didn't respond to a request for comment.
Graham held a news conference in Kiev, where he lauded the sanctions bill while standing in front of Russian military equipment seized during the conflict.
"I've never been more optimistic than I am today that we have the formula to end this war," Graham said.
While the latest version of the bill has more than 60 co-sponsors, all-but guaranteeing its path through the Senate, some Democrats still argue that the legislation hands too much power to the White House.
In a statement, Rep. Gregory Meeks (New York), the top Democrat on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, called the bill a "Trojan horse for tariff authorities" that Trump had "repeatedly abused."
Some analysts have also been skeptical that the legislation can compel Russia to halt its invasion.
Richard Connolly, an expert on the Russian economy at the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London, said the main purchasers of Russian oil could refuse to comply with the law or increase purchases through the black market.
The war in Iran, which has raised global demand for oil, probably would also make the legislation harder to enforce, Connolly argued.
"The medium-term picture is there's still going to be an appetite for Russian crude," he said.
A congressional aide supportive of the legislation, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the criticisms of the bill, argued that the threat of U.S. sanctions could still discourage some countries from buying Russian oil - or at least allow them to negotiate a lower price.
Blumenthal, too, acknowledged that the bill wasn't perfect but noted that the tariff provisions had been substantially narrowed. He argued the legislation, which has posthumously been renamed after Graham, was a rare and significant foreign policy win in a divided Congress.
"It's not the end. It may not even be the beginning of the end," Blumenthal said. "But Putin no longer seems invulnerable."
Noah Robertson joined the Washington Post in 2025, where he covers the core national security committees in Congress. He previously covered the Pentagon and American politics from gun control to policing. In 2023, he began covering the Pentagon for Defense News, chronicling the turmoil within Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth's inner circle of advisers; the political forces surrounding President Donald Trump's contentious defense budget request; and his administration's realignment of U.S. policy toward China, Russia, NATO and the Middle East.
Previously:
• The Trump Pentagon appointee who has divided top 'America First' GOPers
• Should Americans have to risk mortal danger because of partisan gameplaying?
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