Lindsey Graham's Funeral, New Russia Sanctions Iran-USA Heats Up

Russia-Ukraine / USA

After a lull in missile exchanges, we are back in full swing it seems. After the U.S bombed Iranian-backed militia in Iraq, Iran responded with a minimum of six ballistic missile strikes on Jordan of which at least five were intercepted. I’ve always had my reservations about the June deal as many of you would know; yet there was some hope it would calm the Strait of Hormuz. But both sides soon went back to attacking each other there, and a fresh American bombing run answered Iranian strikes that killed at least four American service members, three of them at an air base in Jordan. By July 27 the fighting had stopped: Iran said it had halted its retaliatory attacks, and the United States held off on new raids to give talks some room. Trump said the two sides were speaking and that Tehran wanted a deal, yet Iran's foreign ministry denied any talks were underway.

And what a content-filled day we have had today at Lindsey Graham’s funeral, a man who never saw a war he didn’t like… In Trump's words, not mine! Trump turned to mourning in Washington. He hosted Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House, where Iran led the agenda and Trump pushed back on the Israeli leader's call to widen the war. The two men then joined Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky at the Washington National Cathedral for the funeral of Senator Lindsey Graham. There were many memorable moments, from Trump failing to get a tic tac in his mouth, to him saying he wasn’t well liked in Congress. Netanyahu exchanged long talks with Vance and Rubio and in a separate conversation with Zelensky.

Regarding Zelensky, it’s been a good month. On July 23 the European Union passed its 21st round of measures over the war in Ukraine, the largest batch of individual listings in four years, naming 48 more people and 168 more entities. The package aims squarely at money and energy: it freezes the assets of scores of banks, cuts dozens more off from the SWIFT network, and adds 41 tankers to the shadow-fleet list, raising that count to 692. Brussels also held the cap on Russian crude at $44.10 a barrel until mid-2027 and, for the first time, gave itself the power to bar crypto services from whole countries that help Russia get around the rules. Greece won an exemption to keep shipping Russian liquefied gas, and the bloc tightened matching curbs on Belarus. And hours after Lindsey Graham's funeral, the Senate voted 86-12 to advance a Russia sanctions bill named for him, the Lindsey O. Graham Sanctioning Russia and Iran Act of 2026. Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy made a personal appeal to senators behind closed doors, then watched the vote from the chamber, calling the pressure on Russia very important. The bill would let Trump place heavy tariffs on the largest buyers of Russian oil and gas, widen sanctions on Russian banks, oligarchs and the shadow fleet, and extend Iran sanctions through 2031. Graham's sister Darline, appointed to his seat, is a lead sponsor. This was a first procedural step, and more votes must follow before the Senate can send it to the House.