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Second package of Skripal Case sanctions to come into force on August 26

US President Donald Trump signed the relevant executive order on August 1

WASHINGTON, August 23. /TASS/. The second package of anti-Russian sanctions linked to the so-called ‘Skripal Case’ will become effective from August 26, according to the formal notice of the US State Department posted on Friday in the electronic database of the US Federal Register.

This document will be published on Monday and restrictive measures will apply after that. According to the notification, the decision on restrictions was made as early as on March 29.

Skripal saga

According to London, former Russian Military Intelligence (GRU) Colonel Sergei Skripal, who had been convicted in Russia of spying for Great Britain and later swapped for Russian intelligence officers, and his daughter Yulia, suffered the effects of an alleged nerve agent in the British city of Salisbury on March 4, 2018. Claiming that the substance used in the attack had been a Novichok-class nerve agent developed in the Soviet Union, London rushed to accuse Russia of being involved in the incident. Moscow rejected all of the United Kingdom’s accusations, saying that neither the Soviet Union nor Russia ever had any program aimed at developing such a substance.

Chief Executive of the Defense Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL) at Porton Down Gary Aitkenhead said later that British experts had been unable to identify the origin of the nerve agent used in the attack on the Skripals.

On August 1, US President Donald Trump signed an executive order, which stipulates the procedure of sanctioning the country found to have breached the US Chemical and Biological Weapons Control and Warfare Elimination Act of 1991. The act was used as a legal justification for slapping the first round of sanctions on Russia over the Skripal case at the end of August in 2018. The new sanctions will include a prohibition on US banks from lending non-ruble denominated funds to the Russian government.