Senate and White House Strike Deal on Russia Oil Sanctions

For Serbia, which still buys most of its gas and a significant share of its oil from Russian sources and whose Pancevo refinery has been under the weight of US sanctions since the start of the year, the news out of Washington is no distant geopolitical abstraction but a direct signal of how the sanctions regime toward buyers of Russian energy will look in the coming months. The breakthrough in the US Senate, where lawmakers and the White House finally agreed on a version of the Russia sanctions bill after a long deadlock, opens a new lever of pressure that for the first time does not stop at Russian exporters but reaches everyone still buying Russian oil.

Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the bill’s chief architects, announced the deal during a visit to Kyiv on July 10 and 11, confirming that Donald Trump’s administration had given political clearance to a version of the legislation that had eluded consensus for months. The premise of the draft is simple and all the sharper for it: to economically force Moscow to end a war entering its fifth year by striking at oil revenue, the main artery of the Russian budget.

Why is this bill different from earlier sanctions?

Previous rounds of measures mostly targeted Russian banks, individuals and export companies, leaving buyers of Russian oil room to operate through intermediary arrangements and rerouted shipments. The new draft narrows that room by shifting the burden onto the demand side: anyone purchasing Russian oil exposes themselves to the risk of secondary sanctions, regardless of where they are based. It is a model Washington previously applied to Iranian oil, built on the logic of suffocating the exporter by stripping away its customers.

That is precisely why the draft was so sensitive in the legislative process. Secondary sanctions hit partners and allies alike, so the White House long sought language that leaves the president the discretion to apply the measures selectively rather than automatically. The agreed version, according to Graham, struck that balance, allowing the draft to emerge from the deadlock in which it had been stuck.

Running alongside the sanctions track is a military one. Trump backed joint production of Patriot interceptors with Ukraine, a system crucial to Kyiv’s defense against Russian missile and drone waves, while a bilateral drone agreement between Washington and Kyiv is also advancing. The two tracks, economic pressure on revenue and a boost to Ukrainian arms production, are designed to operate at the same time.

How will the measures hit buyers of Russian oil?

The largest buyers of Russian oil today are not European capitals but Asian markets, so the bill’s real reach will depend on how firmly Washington is willing to risk friction with major importers. The discretion the president retains means the measures will not necessarily fall on all buyers at once, but will likely serve as a tool of negotiating pressure, applied where the political calculus allows.

At the same time, Kyiv is not waiting for the law to take effect. Ukrainian forces have intensified drone strikes on Russian refineries and military production, seeking to erode the very revenue source the bill targets through diplomatic and legal means. The combination of external economic pressure and internal strikes on the Russian energy sector forms a dual lever with a clear aim: to push Moscow to the negotiating table on less favorable terms than before.

For Belgrade, the question is not only how much the bill will truly hurt Moscow, but also how much room will remain for countries that, like Serbia, want to preserve their energy tie to Russia without colliding with Washington. Will the agreed bill on buyers of Russian oil become a tool that also strikes those who had hoped, until now, to stay beyond the reach of sanctions?