US Republican Senator Lindsey Graham has died at the age of 71 following a brief and sudden illness.

His office has released a statement saying he died on Saturday evening, adding that Graham’s family “asks for privacy during this incredibly difficult period.”

Elected to the Senate in 2002, the South Carolina politician was one of Washington’s most influential voices on foreign policy and a key ally of Trump.

He had just returned from Kyiv, where he met the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday. There were no known health concerns ahead of his trip.

In a social media post marking the senator’s death, US President Donald Trump said Graham was a “true American Patriot”.

Graham also served as Chairman of the Senate Budget Committee.

He was a strong proponent of US support for Ukraine. In his most recent trip to the country, Graham was working on a version of the Russia sanctions bill, which he said would give “tools to President Trump to end this war.”

“Putin will not stop in Ukraine,” he told the BBC in 2023.

“To be weak in Ukraine means that you lose in Taiwan,” he said.

Over the years, Graham clashed with President Trump. After the US Capitol riots in 2021, Graham gave a speech on the Senate floor, in which he said: “Trump and I, we’ve had a hell of a journey. I hate it to end this way.”

“All I can say is a count me out. Enough is enough.”

But he later became one of his staunchest backers and supported Trump in the 2024 election.

He told the BBC in 2023: “There is a dark side to Donald Trump… and he was a very good president. But I am sticking with him because I saw what he did,” citing Trump’s record on the US southern border, the killing of Iran’s Qasem Soleimani and the appointment of conservative judges.

Graham “consistently pushed for outcomes in the War on Terror that protect our long-term national security interests,” his website said.

He was opposed to the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan in 2021, describing it as a “sad and dangerous event for US national security…Jihadists all over the world are celebrating. America will be seen as weak.”

Graham was a staunch supporter of Israel. Israel’s President Benjamin Netanyahu paid tribute to Graham, saying “Lindsey understood that the security of Israel and America are inseparable.”

Israel lost “one of its greatest friends” he said.