On September 17, 2026, the US House of Representatives approved a package of sanctions against Russia and its allies linked to the war in Ukraine, according to Le Monde. The vote registered 262 in favor and 159 against. The bill had already been adopted by the Senate with a wider majority, 86 votes to 11.

The text, according to Le Monde, targets the so-called Russian “shadow fleet” for the first time, the network of oil tankers used to circumvent Western sanctions on crude oil. The measure also authorizes the US president to impose tariffs of up to 100% on imports from the five main buyers of Russian gas and oil, a measure that shifts the target from the banking system to the hydrocarbon trade channel.

Tagesschau clarifies the mechanism of the exemption provided for in the text: countries that import less than 15% of Russian gas exports and that adopt significant measures to further reduce such imports are excluded from the tariffs. The wording leaves room for interpretation as to which countries actually fall within the threshold, a detail that the measure will have to clarify at the implementation stage, and which will in practice determine how many of the main buyers remain exposed to the new tariffs.

The two available sources — the German and French outlets — report the vote as journalistic coverage, without direct access to the full approved text. It is not currently clear which third countries will actually be affected by the new tariffs, nor within what timeframe the measures will become operational: Congress approved the general framework, but the implementation details — import thresholds, timelines, possible case-by-case exemptions — remain to be defined in the coming weeks.

The measure adds to an already extensive sanctions framework, at a time when Congress has chosen to intervene directly on the trade channel linked to Russian hydrocarbons, historically the most difficult to hit with direct sanctions on the banking system. The double approval, in the House and the Senate, with wide margins in both chambers, signals bipartisan support for the measure that goes beyond the more usual political divisions in Washington.

We wrote about this yesterday, September 15: Energy truce between Kyiv and Moscow, Zelensky demands verifiable guarantees. Less than forty-eight hours after that announcement, the energy-target truce proposed by Trump on September 14 already appears overtaken by events.

During the night between September 15 and 16, Russia launched up to 200 drones against Ukraine. Ukrainian air defenses shot down 63; the attacks struck service stations in Kyiv and port facilities on the Black Sea. The toll reported by Ukrainian authorities is at least nine dead and dozens wounded within 24 hours.

The Russian Ministry of Defense provided a different account of the targets: according to Moscow, the drones hit a logistics center, a ferry and a cargo ship in the port of Chornomorsk, as well as railway infrastructure. Kyiv, for its part, denounced that the attacks are continuing despite the statements about a possible truce released two days earlier by Washington.

The two accounts do not coincide on the nature of the targets — energy and port facilities according to Kyiv, logistical-military according to Moscow — but they agree on the central fact: last night the attacks did happen, and on a large scale. Two hundred drones launched, sixty-three shot down, mean that more than one hundred devices reached a target in Ukrainian territory within a few hours: it is on this figure, more than on the opposing labels, that the truce promise meets its first concrete test.

Trump’s announcement, made just two days ago, contained no timetable nor any explicit verification mechanism: neither party had indicated how compliance with the agreement would be ascertained, or who would be responsible for certifying it. It remains to be seen whether the coming hours will bring an official reaction from Washington on the durability of the initiative, or whether last night’s raid will mark its premature end, without it ever having been formalized in verifiable terms.