U.S. lawmaker submits amendment naming India in Russia sanctions act
A member of the US House of Representatives submitted an amendment to the pending Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 that explicitly names India among the countries whose trade with Russia would trigger consequences under the bill.
The underlying bill had already passed the US Senate by an 86–11 vote and was pending consideration in the House.
The Act, as passed by the Senate, targets Russia's leadership and energy sector, and separately targets the "shadow fleet" of vessels used to move Russian oil in ways that evade existing sanctions.
The bill would empower the US President to impose steep tariffs (reported at up to 100%) on major purchasers of Russian energy, a group in which India and China are the two largest buyers of Russian crude oil.
The legislation includes a presidential waiver mechanism, allowing sanctions or tariffs to be waived if the President certifies to Congress that a waiver serves the US national interest.
Secondary Sanctions and the "Shadow Fleet" Mechanism
Secondary sanctions are penalties imposed by a country (typically the US) not on the sanctioned state itself, but on third-country entities that continue to do business with it — extending the sanctioning country's leverage extraterritorially. The "shadow fleet" refers to an informal, opaque network of tankers (often with obscured ownership, flags of convenience, and disabled tracking transponders) used to carry sanctioned Russian oil to buyers while evading the G7's price-cap and insurance-based sanctions regime imposed after Russia's 2022 invasion of Ukraine.
Key Details
- The G7 price cap on Russian seaborne crude (set at $60/barrel in December 2022, since adjusted) relies on Western insurers and shippers refusing service above the cap; the shadow fleet exists precisely to bypass this by using non-Western insurance and ownership structures.
- Secondary sanctions differ from primary sanctions, which bar the sanctioning country's own nationals/entities from dealing with the target; India, as a non-aligned third party continuing to buy discounted Russian crude, is a textbook target of secondary — not primary — sanctions logic.
- Tariffs (trade tools, WTO-adjacent) versus sanctions (financial/asset-freeze tools) are legally distinct instruments; this bill uses both, threatening tariffs specifically rather than only asset freezes or entity-list designations.
Naming India in the amendment reflects that India has become one of the largest buyers of discounted Russian crude since 2022, making it a direct target of the bill's tariff-based secondary-sanctions design, alongside China.
CAATSA and Precedent for US Sanctions Pressure on India
The Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act (CAATSA), 2017, is the existing US law that mandates secondary sanctions on entities conducting "significant transactions" with Russia's defence or intelligence sectors, under its Section 231. It became a live India-US friction point after India's 2018 contract (signed during a Russia-India summit) to purchase five regiments of the S-400 Triumf air defence system from Russia for an estimated $5.4 billion.
Key Details
- The US has never issued India a formal, public CAATSA waiver for the S-400 deal; it has instead relied on an informal non-determination, choosing not to make the "significant transaction" finding needed to trigger sanctions.
- CAATSA sanctions were, by contrast, actually imposed on Turkey (in 2020) after Ankara's S-400 purchase, showing that waiver treatment is discretionary and inconsistent rather than automatic.
- India's official position, reiterated across CAATSA and now the Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act, is that its Russia dealings (energy or defence) are sovereign decisions based on national interest and energy security, not aligned with any bloc.
The 2026 bill is a fresh iteration of the same US legislative tool CAATSA pioneered — using sanctions-linked legislation to pressure India over its Russia ties — but this time aimed at oil imports rather than defence procurement, and using tariffs as the enforcement lever instead of asset-based sanctions.
- The US Senate passed the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026 by a vote of 86–11.
- The bill authorises tariffs of up to 100% on major purchasers of Russian oil and gas, subject to a presidential waiver.
- India and China are the two largest importers of Russian crude oil among major economies.
- CAATSA (2017) Section 231 remains the precedent secondary-sanctions law behind India's unresolved S-400 waiver question, dating to India's 2018, ~$5.4 billion S-400 purchase agreement.