Who refreshed Ukraine's election commission, and who faced US sanctions?
A look back at 20 September 2018, when the Verkhovna Rada renewed the Central Election Commission and Washington sanctioned a Chinese military agency.
What did a single day in September 2018 bring for Ukraine's public institutions and for the sanctions debate abroad? On 20 September 2018, the Verkhovna Rada renewed the membership of the Central Election Commission, the body that organises the country's national votes.
The renewal was overdue. The previous composition of the commission should have been replaced four years earlier, so the Rada's decision ended a long period in which the commission operated beyond its expected term.
A separate move in Washington
The same day, the United States State Department imposed sanctions on the Equipment Development Department, an agency within China's military. The measure was taken under the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act. According to the report at the time, the agency had purchased Sukhoi Su-35 fighters and S-400 missile system equipment through Rosoboronexport, Russia's main arms export agency.
The act is a US federal law that imposed sanctions on Iran, North Korea and Russia. It works by preventing US companies from doing business with sanctioned entities. The Senate passed it on 27 July 2017, by 98 votes to 2, after the House approved it 419 to 3. President Donald Trump signed it into law on 2 August 2017, though he believed the legislation was seriously flawed.
Two stories, one date
The two developments were unconnected in the reports from that day: one concerned the machinery of Ukrainian elections, the other the enforcement of an American sanctions law against a buyer of Russian weaponry. Together they mark what 20 September 2018 brought in politics.
