US Senator Says Russia Sanctions Bill Will Be 'Economic Bunker Buster' for India
New Delhi: US senator Lindsey Graham, a longtime supporter of pro-Ukraine moves, has said that his sanctions bill against Russia will act as an "economic bunker buster" against, among other countries that do business with Moscow, India.
Graham was quoted as having said on June 22 in a television interview that he has 84 co-sponsors for the bill, "that is an economic bunker buster against China, India, and Russia for Russia's brutal invasion of Ukraine. I think that bill's going to pass...It's time to vote on that bill."
The Sanctioning Russia Act of 2025 was introduced to the US senate in April this year.
Politico's report on Graham's movements with the bill notes that the South Carolina Republican’s proposal is to impose 500% tariffs on any country that buys Russian energy.
The bill's passage through the US senate is complicated by US president Donald Trump's famous friendship with Russian president Vladimir Putin. Of late, however, this friendship has not been in the best for forms with Trump calling Putin "CRAZY" on social media.
The Wall Street Journal had reported in June that in the past weeks, White House and other administration officials have "quietly contacted Graham’s office," urging him to water down his bill by allowing Trump himself to choose who gets sanctioned and replacing "shall" with "may" in the list of reprimands.
Graham, according to Politico, plans to exempt countries that have aided Ukraine, indicating the European Union could perhaps escape the bill's ambit.
The move would naturally cut the US off key economies like India, which, along with China, buys roughly 70% of Russian energy exports. Among countries that import from Russia is the US itself, which depends on the country for enriched uranium to fuel its nuclear reactors.
While the bill will take time to travel through US senate and congress, support for it has been described as bipartisan and widespread, in the fourth year of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
As The Wire has reported multiple times, Russia has in the last three years risen to become one of India’s top three crude oil suppliers. In May 2025, Centre for Research on Energy and Clean Air reported that Russia’s monthly fossil fuel export revenues saw a 3% month-on-month drop to Eurp 565 million per day — the lowest since the invasion – but India’s imports of Russian coal surged by 34% month-on-month — an all time high. India has bought 38% of Russia's crude exports.
India's reluctance to publicly criticise Russia for its invasion and its consistent position as one of the largest purchasers of Russian crude oil in the recent past has put it in a spot with the US frequently since early 2022, when the Ukraine war began.
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