EDITORIAL: Senate bill could push Putin to the peace table

Last week, President Donald Trump spoke to Russia’s Vladimir Putin for more than an hour about Ukraine. But results remain elusive. “It was a good conversation,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, “But not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace.”

On the contrary. Reports revealed that Putin vowed more bloodshed in retaliation for Ukraine’s recent attack inside Russia.

This is an unfortunate trend. Mr. Trump has made sincere efforts to end the conflict that Russia started more than three years ago. Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has been receptive to the president’s proposals. But Putin has resisted Mr. Trump’s initiatives and continues to escalate the fighting at a staggering cost. The latest estimates put Russian casualties at one million.

Congress has, for the most part, given Mr. Trump wide leeway to pursue his diplomatic initiatives. But there is a growing consensus among both Republicans and Democrats that the United States must send a stronger message to Russia that its actions are an affront to the civilized world and global stability.

Enter Sen. Lindsey Graham, Republican of South Carolina, who wrote in the Wall Street Journal that he has been working with the White House on legislation to starve Russia of the energy cash that finances its aggressions. “Peace requires willing partners,” he wrote. “While Ukraine has made clear it is ready for such an end, Russia has made more excuses than the market can bear.”

The bill, a bipartisan effort also sponsored by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., and 81 others, would “put Russia on a trade island, slapping 500 percent tariffs on any country that buys Moscow’s energy products,” Sen. Graham explained. “The consequences of its barbaric invasion must be made real to those that prop it up. If China or India stopped buying cheap oil, Putin’s war machine would grind to a halt.”

Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the upper chamber “will act” on the proposal if Putin “continues to play games.” House Republicans are also eager to move the bill forward. Mr. Trump, however, has yet to publicly endorse the legislation. The president, though, has shown signs of growing weary of Putin’s tactics. In April, he wrote on social media that maybe Putin “just tapping me along, and has to be dealt with differently, through ‘Banking’ or ‘Secondary Sanctions?’ Too many people are dying!!!” Last week, he said Putin “was playing with fire.”

There must be a high price for nations that support Russia’s efforts at territorial conquest. The Graham-Blumenthal plan is well worth pursuing and would be a potent incentive for Putin to re-examine the calculus of the Ukraine invasion.

The views expressed above are those of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.