Ukraine had few, if any, friends in Washington he offered more than Senator Lindsey Graham, who visited Kyiv last weekend. His sudden death over the weekend left Ukraine’s leadership wondering who could replace him: someone who had the rare ability to talk tough with Volodymyr Zelensky, negotiate with Donald Trump, and show both presidents how their interests can align.
“His soft Carolina accent that makes tough decisions will be missed,” Serhii Kyslytsia, Zelensky’s deputy chief of staff, told me today. He saw Graham twice in the week before his death, once at the NATO summit in Ankara, and again in Kyiv. “I hope there are people at his level to take and conclude his views and plans.”
Graham’s most recent visit with Zelensky marked at least the tenth trip he has made to Ukraine since Russia invaded in 2022. The state railway company usually provided special trains for his delegation, and the senator would get a private cabin with two narrow beds for the overnight trip. During the first of those trips, in July 2022, Graham went to the city of Bucha, a suburb of the capital where Russian forces occupied for about a month in the spring. In the town’s churchyard, he saw evidence of a mass grave of civilians killed during the invasion, and later explained as “holy land.”
But his stated reasons for supporting Ukraine had more to do with American interests than any appeal to human compassion or international justice. As he told Zelensky when another visitIn May 2023, US wartime aid to Ukraine was “the best money we’ve ever spent.” He said that the United States should not miss its chance to weaken Russia, a strategic enemy, without endangering the lives of American soldiers. “We have reduced the military strength of the Russian army by 50 percent. None of us died in the effort,” he told. 60 minutes in an interview held in the main square of Kyiv at that time. “This is a big deal for America.”
The comments angered the Moscow government, which responded by issuing an arrest warrant for Graham. “It is hard to imagine a greater shame for the country than having such senators,” the Kremlin’s chief spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, said at the time. Some of Graham’s critics in the United States. the suspect and with concern for admitting, in principle, that the United States did not want to help Ukraine but to exploit it for geographical and political benefits. But Zelensky never found fault with Graham’s logic. On the contrary, the Ukrainian leader has used similar arguments to convince his European partners to increase their support for his country.
Gmercy funded bill last year which will impose severe economic sanctions on Russia. At his 70th birthday party last summer, he told me that the bill would pass in a few days and that President Trump had agreed to sign it. “We’re going to do this for Ukraine,” Graham said at the event, which was attended by Stephen Miller, the president’s senior aide. But the legislation was never voted on, and Graham struggled to convince the White House of its importance. Just last week, during his visit to Kyiv, Graham and several colleagues in the Senate he announced that the revised version of the sanctions bill has received the approval of the Trump administration. They promised to move the law forward “very soon.”
If passed, it would serve as a prime example of Graham’s commitment to helping Zelensky, who has repeatedly ignored the senator’s advice or warned him about Ukraine’s military plans. In August 2024, Ukrainian armed forces launched a cross-border invasion of the Kursk region, the first foreign invasion of Russian territory since World War II. Graham visited Kyiv during the Kursk battle, and seemed impressed by the Ukrainians’ attempt to turn the tide of the war. “Well, you’re in Russia. I’m glad you didn’t tell us earlier,” Graham told Zelensky with a smile, according to Ukraine’s then-foreign minister, Dmytro Kuleba, who attended the meeting.
Zelensky answered with a laugh, Kuleba told me. They then spent an hour discussing US support for Ukraine and how it would change if Trump wins the presidential race in November. After Trump’s victory, Graham worked behind the scenes to ensure that the incoming administration would not pull the plug on Ukraine or hand it over to the Russians. As part of that effort, he came up with a plan for the United States to take a large share of any profits from the mining of rare minerals and other natural resources in Ukraine. Graham hoped that such a deal would appeal to Trump’s instincts as a businessman and maintain American support.
Ahead of the planned signing of the mineral deal, in February 2025, Graham taught Zelensky how to behave against Trump, urging him to be respectful and not “take the bait.” The senator then watched in amazement as the meeting proceeded with noise. “A complete and utter disaster,” he said he told reporters later on the White House lawn, his voice shaking with emotion. “I don’t know if we can do business with Zelensky again.”
Later, the US cut off all aid to Ukraine for about 10 days, and Graham insisted that Ukraine needed to hold presidential elections. Zelensky took the advice as a call for his dismissal. In interview last year, Zelensky told me that the impetus for the presidential vote in the middle of the war was the Russian position that US officials “took” to remove him.
Despite these upheavals in their relationship, Graham returned to Zelensky’s office late last week. According to the official read in their meeting, they discussed the sanctions program against Russia, which will remain, from the Ukrainian point of view, the most important piece of Graham’s unfinished business. Kyslytsia, a senior official in Kyiv, expressed hope that Graham’s colleagues in the Senate would “celebrate his life” by passing the bill. “That would be the right way to pay him taxes,” he told me.
