What did new US sanctions on Russia signal?

What did Washington intend when it imposed new sanctions on Russia on 8 August 2018? The measures were a reaction to the poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal, in which a Novichok nerve agent was used in the United Kingdom.

The announcement came a day after the United Kingdom said it would seek the extradition of suspects from Russia. Read together, the two steps showed Western governments responding to the attack on parallel tracks: London pursuing individuals, Washington applying economic pressure.

A second front in sanctions

The move was not the only American action against Russian entities that month. On 3 August 2018, the United States imposed sanctions on a Russian bank that had facilitated a transaction for a North Korean already on an American blacklist.

The two episodes concerned different matters, one the nerve-agent attack and the other a financial transaction linked to North Korea. Both, however, were part of the same pattern in Russia–United States relations in early August 2018: Washington was using sanctions as its main instrument.

For readers in Kyiv and neighbouring capitals, the sequence was worth noting. Sanctions on Russia were being applied across several separate issues within a single week.