Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy took to social media on Saturday to state that the executive order President Donald Trump signed Friday evening — suspending Russia-related tariffs and sanctions provisions under the Graham Act, including levies on Russian goods and penalties tied to oil and gas purchases that had been set to take effect the following week — amounted to a policy shift that, in his view, stood to benefit Moscow alone. Zelenskyy expressed that position by writing that reversing those measures "seems wrong to me" and that it "definitely helps only the Russians." Trump described the waiver as being in keeping with the national interests of the United States.
The legislation, designed to increase economic and diplomatic costs for Russia following its 2022 military offensive into Ukraine, sets out a framework of escalating measures tied to that conflict. Legislation bearing Senator Lindsey O. Graham's name — directing sanctions at both Russia and Iran — received a presidential signature around the middle of September 2026. Under the bill, championed in Congress by the late South Carolina Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, tariffs reaching as high as 100 percent would have taken effect within 30 days on goods entering the United States from the five nations purchasing the greatest volumes of Russian crude oil or natural gas. The same levy would have applied to any country that either purchased Russian oil or gas in the 30 days following enactment or ranked among the five nations doing the most to help Russia circumvent existing sanctions.
Under the Graham Act, a presidential waiver of those penalties becomes available whenever the White House formally notifies Congress that enforcing them would run counter to national interests. The executive order stated that the waiver would remain active until the administration determined that additional steps were warranted.
Relations between Trump and Moscow have grown noticeably closer at a time when he has also directed public criticism at Zelenskyy, at one point raising the prospect of a leadership change in Kyiv. On Friday, Kirill Dmitriev — who holds the role of Russia's investment envoy — posted on X that the Trump waiver represented a pivot in relations between the two nations, noting that the penalties, had they come into force, would have severed nearly all commerce flowing between them.
Two of the world's largest purchasers of Russian oil — China and India — had put forward objections to the Graham Act. China's foreign ministry stated that it stood against extraterritorial legal reach that falls outside internationally recognised frameworks, while India's government conveyed to Washington that the proposed tariff measures carried the potential to strain the two countries' relationship.
With U.S. midterm elections approaching — contests in which Trump's Republican Party holds thin margins in both legislative chambers — the newly announced measures carried the potential to push oil prices higher at a time when Americans were already contending with elevated costs tied, according to analysts, to the military conflict between the United States and Israel on one side and Iran on the other.
Rep. Don Beyer, a Democrat representing Virginia, argued in a Friday statement that the policy amounted to a concession to Moscow that undermined both congressional intent and commitments to Ukraine.
Zelenskyy stated that the latest move by Trump gives Russian President Vladimir Putin greater latitude to act, and that on Friday alone Russia struck more than 15 Ukrainian power generation and transmission facilities — a development he said does nothing to halt the fighting and may instead invite intensified strikes in western Ukraine.
In a Saturday post, Zelenskyy noted that the legislation carrying the late senator's name had represented a source of reassurance for continued bipartisan support of Ukraine, and he acknowledged the senator's absence in personal terms — "It's difficult without him, I'll be honest." Throughout his life, Graham backed U.S. aid to Ukraine without wavering — a view he carried right up to his death in July.
Zelenskyy also expressed the view that Washington's posture toward Moscow — encompassing both a fuel-export arrangement concluded earlier in the month and the waiver tied to the Graham Act — pointed toward further concessions beyond the Friday deadline, telling reporters: "I think the diesel deal and the move regarding the Lindsey Graham Act are not the end of it."
