The US Senate voted to advance a bill to ramp up economic penalties on Russia and countries that buy its fossil fuels, but the proposal will face tough questions about whether it really helps Ukraine or merely empowers President Donald Trump’s global tariff war.
The bill won an uncommonly strong bipartisan majority that mirrors the more bullish posture toward the Kremlin that Trump took during his meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in Washington this week. The problem, however, is that the legislation would allow the president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on the top buyers of Russian oil and gas, and on countries that facilitate Russian sanctions evasion. Edward Fishman, a senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and former State Department sanctions official, said he was “skeptical this bill will make a difference with respect to Russia” because tariffs haven’t proven an effective means to deter Russia’s trading partners. “But it gives Trump the flexible tariff authority that the Supreme Court shot down earlier this year.”
The energy war between Russia and Ukraine, meanwhile, continues to escalate. Ukrainian drone commanders are honing their targeting of Russian refineries and leaving swaths of Crimea with no fuel or power, while Russia ramps up attacks on Ukraine’s gas stations. In his meeting with Trump, Zelenskyy asked for a “winter package” of Patriot missile interceptors to defend against likely Russian attacks on heating systems later this year, Axios reported.
