AmUkr Statement: Implement the Sanctioning Russia Act
Washington, D.C., October 19, 2026
Reverse Course:
Implement the Sanctioning Russia Act as Congress Intended
The American Ukraine Committee (AmUkr) opposes the President's decision to waive the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act and the accompanying agreement to buy Russian diesel. We call on President Trump to reverse course and implement the law as Congress wrote it and intended it to work.
The Act passed the Senate 86–11 and the House 262–159, with the White House's backing. It was due to take effect yesterday. On October 16, the President signed an executive order suspending its core provisions before any took effect. This is a change in American policy toward Russia, made without the explanation to the public that a decision of this weight requires.
What Changed
The waiver suspends the parts of the law that were meant to bite, with no end date:
Mandatory sanctions on Russian officials, banks, state-controlled enterprises and the energy sector.
Tariffs on Russian goods and on countries that keep buying Russian oil and gas.
The requirement that these measures take effect on a fixed timeline rather than at the administration's discretion.
One week earlier, on October 9, the administration announced an agreement for Russia to supply more than 4.8 million tons of diesel to world markets, and the Treasury issued a license permitting U.S. imports of Russian diesel through April 2027. The United States should not be buying fuel from the country whose war caused the shortage. Every barrel purchased funds the army attacking Ukrainian cities.
Our Call to Action
The American Ukraine Committee calls on President Trump to:
Rescind the waiver and implement the Sanctioning Russia Act in full, on the timeline Congress set.
Cancel the diesel agreement and revoke the Treasury license. No Russian diesel should be sold into the United States or facilitated by it while Russia wages war on Ukraine.
Designate new entities. Begin sanctioning the Russian banks, state enterprises, shadow-fleet operators, and third-country enablers the law identifies, rather than leaving the list where it stood before the Act passed.
Empower the Treasury Department to enforce the law: give OFAC the mandate, staff and resources to designate, investigate and penalize, so the Act is applied as written and not held in reserve.
We also call on Members of both chambers who voted for this bill to insist, publicly and through their oversight authority, that the law they passed is carried out.
Senator Graham wrote this law to give an American president maximum leverage over the Kremlin. That leverage only works if it is used.
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The American Ukraine Committee (amukr.org) is a 501(c)(4) membership organization building a permanent, bipartisan presence on Capitol Hill to convert public and congressional support for Ukraine into concrete, durable political outcomes.