Senate to vote on revoking Russia's trade status, oil ban

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate will take up legislation Thursday to end normal trade relations with Russia and to ban the importation of its oil, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced Wednesday.

Both bills have been bogged down in the Senate, frustrating lawmakers who want to ratchet up the U.S. response as the Ukraine war enters a gruesome new phase.

“It's a big, big deal that we are finally getting them done," Schumer said. “Now, I wish this could have happened sooner, but after weeks of talks with the other side, it's important that we have found a path forward."

It’s been three weeks since the House passed the trade suspension measure that paves the way for President Joe Biden to enact higher tariffs on certain Russian imports. At the time, the legislation was billed as sending a message to Russian President Vladimir Putin and his allies about the economic isolation Russia will face for invading Ukraine.

The House vote in mid-March came one day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy told Congress in a virtual speech that “new packages of sanctions are needed constantly every week until the Russian military machine stops."

“They cannot just go kill a bunch of people, destroy cities, kill women and children, and then go back and have business as usual,” Ukrainian-born U.S. Rep. Victoria Spartz, a Republican from Indiana, said as the trade bill was debated in the House.

Reports of civilians being tortured and killed in Ukraine, with streets on the outskirts of Kyiv being strewn with corpses, had some lawmakers this week questioning why the Senate had not yet taken action on the bill.

“What I’m telling the senators is that all this foot-dragging in the face of the atrocities that everybody saw this weekend is just really beyond imagination," said Sen....