Ukraine lost one of its most vocal supporters in Washington this weekend with the death of Sen. Lindsey Graham just hours after returning from a visit to Kiev.
On Sunday, amid numerous tributes from Ukraine, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Sviridenko said, “Senator Graham stood by Ukraine and defended democratic values during Russia’s all-out invasion.”
The Republican from South Carolina has visited Ukraine 10 times since the 2022 invasion, including one last week, and co-sponsored a tough sanctions bill against Russia. But he was also acutely aware of U.S. President Donald Trump’s early animosity toward Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Mr. Graham’s support for Ukraine stems from his years of experience in national security issues and his firm belief in America’s expanding global role.
Like another Republican senator, John McCain, with whom he frequently traveled, Graham was a staunch supporter of the Transatlantic Alliance. He served in the U.S. Army in Germany for four years before the fall of the Berlin Wall.
“I’m a Ronald Reagan Republican,” Graham said in a 2011 interview. “Instead of watching the world fall apart, I want to shape world events. That means I have to be involved.”
Lindsey Graham says he has ‘never felt more optimistic’ about ending the war in Ukraine during his final visit to Kiev
After Russia illegally annexed Crimea in 2014, Mr. Graham was an early advocate of sending defensive weapons to Ukraine, which at the time lacked almost all military forces.
Days after the invasion began in earnest, he suggested that someone in Putin’s inner circle should kill him, sparking Moscow’s ire. Mr. Graham asked if there was a Brutus in Russia, adding: “You would do a great service to your country and to the world.”
He later called Putin “a scoundrel and a bully who will try to get away as long as he can until someone stops him.”
Mr. Graham also supported legislation that would have prevented the United States from recognizing Russia’s sovereignty claims over all of Ukraine and supported a proposal (which never materialized) for the U.S. military to train Ukrainian troops on Ukrainian soil.
He also co-sponsored the Standing Together with Ukraine Act, which provided for expanded defense transfers and security cooperation.
“It sends a message to the world that the United States stands with Ukraine. Their fight is our fight, and both their freedoms and ours are at stake,” he said of the bill.
However, this bill was never passed into law.
Mr. Graham was conscious of Mr. Trump’s influence on the Republican Party. Mr. Graham said last year that he wanted to be “realistic” about ending the war by allowing Russia to keep some of the territory it occupied.
He also supported President Trump’s push for more spending with NATO allies. “Trump is right. Absolutely, they should pay more,” Graham said. “And you know, no one else could do it.”
But fundamentally, Graham saw NATO as a pillar of American security. He argued that the Alliance’s defensive posture would force aggressors to “think twice before starting a war.”
NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte said on Sunday: “He was a strong voice for America who believed strongly in the NATO alliance.”
Over the past 18 months, Mr. Graham has navigated the shifting sands of the Trump administration’s approach to Ukraine.
After the disastrous Trump-Zelensky meeting last February, Mr. Graham even suggested that the Ukrainian president should resign. “I don’t know if I will be able to do business with Mr. Zelenskiy again,” he said.
But he quickly returned to lobbying on behalf of Ukraine, urging President Trump to provide Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine and developing a sweeping sanctions package aimed at crushing sanctions on countries that import Russian oil.
The senator returned to Kiev a few days before his death, where he received a warm welcome from President Zelenskiy, toured a Ukrainian drone factory, and once again appealed for support for Ukraine.
Hours before his departure, Mr. Graham announced that a bipartisan group of senators had reached an agreement with the White House to impose new sanctions on Russia.
“We have a formula to end this war,” he said. “Help Ukraine become more lethal. Let those who support Russia know that if they keep doing this, they will have to pay a price.”
