The US House of Representatives returned to Washington yesterday after a five-week recess. Sitting on its desk, still untouched, is a Russia sanctions bill that passed the Senate 86–11 on August 7 and hasn’t moved since a companion version was introduced in the House on August 10. Ukraine’s sanctions envoy, Vladislav Vlasyuk, arrived in Washington this week to press the case in person. Razom We Stand, the Ukrainian-founded energy and policy organisation, says Washington doesn’t need another meeting — it needs a floor vote, and a signature.
In the three weeks the bill has sat waiting, the United Nations recorded July as Ukraine’s deadliest month for civilian casualties since April 2022, and a single Russian strike on a village outside Kyiv over the weekend killed 38 people. Russia’s defence ministry has already announced it is preparing massive strikes on Ukraine’s power grid this winter. The House has only three session weeks left before holidays and midterm campaigning consumes the calendar — now is the moment to act, not after more waves of deadly Russian attacks.
Razom We Stand is also renewing pressure on a company still doing business inside the system, paying for those strikes: SLB, the Houston-headquartered oilfield services firm still embedded in Russia’s oil industry more than four years into the invasion. SLB’s own 2025 annual report discloses that Russia accounted for 4% of its global revenue last year, with the carrying value of its net assets inside Russia still at roughly $0.7 billion as of December 31, 2025.
That’s the choice in front of Washington: continue to passively delay sanctions, while letting US companies like SLB continue to help fund the revenue that pays for these strikes, or move the bill already sitting in front of Congress and put it on President Trump’s desk. Razom We Stand says there’s no version of “later” that doesn’t cost more Ukrainian lives.
Dr Svitlana Romanko, Founder and Executive Director of Razom We Stand, said:
“Rockets rain down faster than ever upon Kyiv and Ukraine now, with thirty-eight of our people killed outside Kyiv in one day last weekend. The strong bill that could help dry up funding for Russia’s next strike is still sitting on desks in Washington. For us Ukrainians, this isn’t abstract — it’s a body count filled with our friends and relatives, and the casualties grow every week Congress waits. Russia can only keep striking our cities because it can still sell its oil, and there is an American company called SLB, headquartered in Houston, still helping fund that machine. The Senate has already voted. All that’s missing now is a House floor vote and President Trump’s signature. Sign it, and mean it — no waivers that let this or any future administration look away next month. Every day this waits is a day we bury more people.”
What Razom We Stand is calling for next
- Bring the Russia Sanctions bill H.R. 10076 to a floor vote this month, and send it to President Trump’s desk without delay.
- Sign it as passed, without weakening the waiver authority that lets any administration decline to enforce it.
- Direct the Treasury Department to end SLB’s sanctions exemptions and require full divestment from Russia, with no case-by-case waivers.
