What did sanctions and courts decide around 3 August 2018?
A look back at sanctions on Russian entities and a Ukrainian court ruling on language status in the days around 3 August 2018.
What was happening in the days around 3 August 2018? Several reported decisions touched Russia, Ukraine and their neighbours, from sanctions to a court ruling on language.
On 3 August 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on a Russian bank that had facilitated a transaction for a North Korean on an American blacklist.
A few days earlier, on 31 July 2018, the European Union imposed sanctions on six Russian companies involved in building the bridge linking mainland Russia to the Crimean peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, after invading and occupying the peninsula in February and March of that year.
The same day, a court ruling stripped Russian of its status as a regional language in Ukraine's Mykolaiv region.
On 30 July 2018, Georgia's Constitutional Court legalised cannabis for recreational use following a campaign led by the Georgian politician Zurab Japaridze. As reported at the time, Georgia became the first former Soviet republic to fully legalise the drug, which had also been decriminalised in Russia, Ukraine and Estonia.
