The Senate overwhelmingly approved the Graham sanctions package this month, 86-11, marking the most significant legislative effort this year to alter the trajectory of Russia's war in Ukraine. The bill, if it clears the House, would arm the Trump administration with expanded powers to punish nations that continue purchasing Russian oil and gas, target the shadow fleet of reflagged tankers, and impose fresh restrictions on Russian banks and energy ventures. Senator Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) declared from the floor, "Today we say to Vladimir Putin: You will not conquer Ukraine."
Economic pressure can indeed bite, but sanctions are a tool, not a strategy. Washington has yet to articulate what it seeks to achieve. Vague phrases like "settlement," "peace deal," or "with Ukraine as long as it takes" dodge the fundamental questions: How do we curb Moscow's appetite for war? Why does Putin persist in his campaign of terror? And how many elderly Ukrainians must be hunted down by Russian drones—what some have called a human safari—before America remembers its commitments under the Budapest Memorandum?
The theory embedded in the bill is straightforward: drain Russia's revenue, raise the cost of aggression, and let the pain accumulate until the Kremlin decides the war isn't worth it. Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) argued that such pressure would force Putin to take peace negotiations seriously. But this logic assumes a rational actor that cares about its own people—a premise history repeatedly refutes. From tsars to commissars to today's kleptocrats, Moscow has consistently sacrificed its citizens to preserve control over its vast colonial holdings, from Kamchatka to Kaliningrad.
The numbers are staggering. In July alone, Russia suffered an estimated 42,860 soldiers killed or wounded—nearly double the U.S. military's casualties over two decades in Afghanistan. Total Russian losses may now approach 1.5 million. One might think that at some point, the human toll would force Moscow to sue for peace. But the Kremlin is moving in the opposite direction. It rejected Ukraine's prompt acceptance of the Trump administration's unconditional ceasefire in March and scoffed at Ankara's limited Black Sea truce proposal this month.
America's foreign policy has long been calibrated to a Russia that no longer exists. We imagine a nation-state with national interests, but the sprawling federation across 11 time zones is better understood as an empire—a predatory leviathan built on subjugation and extraction. Lenin called tsarist Russia a "prison of nations" in 1914, and little has changed. The Kremlin loots oil from Siberia, diamonds from Sakha, and conscripts soldiers from dozens of subjugated ethnic groups, feeding them into the furnace of yet another colonial conquest. The Financial Times reported in February that men from Buryatia and Tuva are 25 times more likely to die in Ukraine than men from Moscow. Michael Kofman of the Carnegie Endowment noted that Moscow has built a pipeline for assault troops and "largely didn't care about expending these people."
Sanctions can restrict Moscow's cash flow and, if enforced, make its war machine sputter. But using economic pain to coax the Kremlin into negotiations is a fool's errand, as is waiting for the Russian people to tire of war. The strategic purpose of sanctions must be to weaken and ultimately remove Moscow's capacity to wage war. The U.S. must be explicit about the outcome that will give peace a chance. That means supplying Ukraine with long-range weapons to destroy missile production sites and military airfields. The shadow fleet should not just be named and shamed; sanctioned vessels should be boarded and seized.
Starving Moscow of energy revenues and investing heavily in Ukraine's defense industry are obvious next steps. A peace that leaves Russia capable of another war will, at best, be an intermission—and at worst, a red carpet for World War III. Sanctions on Iran have shown that economic pressure alone rarely changes behavior, and the same applies to Russia.
NATO's Article Five has been invoked only once, in defense of the U.S. after 9/11. Washington should consider what its allies would expect if the next test came in reverse. What if Romania had failed to intercept an explosive-laden Russian naval drone in the Black Sea? What if the drone that U.S. intelligence linked to Moscow at a German airport had struck its target? If one of these provocations crosses the line, the White House will face a choice between abandoning the alliance or entering a war with Russia. Unchecked aggression spreads, and every high schooler knows that. American security and credibility will not be restored while Russia is given a free hand to wage its horrific war, while it supplies the ayatollahs in Iran with intelligence to target U.S. forces.
A recent Pew Research Center poll found that two-thirds of Americans lack confidence in President Trump's handling of Russia's war. Only 20 percent say Ukraine is receiving too much support, and 83 percent view Russia unfavorably. With midterms approaching, lawmakers are eager to pass the Graham Act. But sanctions accomplish little without a clear purpose. That purpose must be to break Moscow's ability to make war, not merely to make it pay a price.
