What did the final days of July 2018 mean for Ukraine?

What was happening around Ukraine in the days leading up to 5 August 2018? The reports from the end of July and the first days of August point to a mix of sanctions, a regional language ruling and a regional drug-policy milestone.

Pressure over the Crimean bridge

On 31 July 2018, the European Union imposed sanctions on six Russian companies involved in building the bridge that connects mainland Russia to the annexed Crimea peninsula. Crimea had been invaded, occupied and annexed by Russia in February and March 2014, after a referendum described as illegitimate, amid the uncertainty that followed Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity. The bridge sanctions therefore touched a territory at the centre of the Russo-Ukrainian conflict.

On 3 August 2018, the United States separately imposed sanctions on a Russian bank that had facilitated a transaction for a North Korean already on an American blacklist.

A court ruling on language in Mykolaiv

Also on 31 July 2018, a court ruled that Russian had lost its status as a regional language in Ukraine's Mykolaiv region. The decision was a matter of public life at regional level, and it sat alongside the sanctions news as part of the same week's agenda.

A neighbour's cannabis decision

On 30 July 2018, the Constitutional Court of Georgia legalised cannabis for recreational use, following a campaign led by the Georgian politician Zurab Japaridze. Georgia became the first former Soviet republic to legalise the drug fully. It had also been decriminalised in Russia, Ukraine and Estonia, as reported at the time.

Looking back

Taken together, the reports show Ukraine's position in the region on the eve of 5 August 2018: Western governments were tightening financial and economic measures aimed at Russia, a Ukrainian court was changing the legal standing of a language in one region, and a neighbouring country was moving ahead on drug policy.