Russia bans food imports from sanctioning countries
August 6, 2014, 4:05 pm

Putin had on Tuesday said Russia would respond to the West’s provocations on targeting Russia’s oil and arms industry with sanctions [PPIO]

Moscow was responding to the latest round of sanctions imposed by the EU last week over Moscow’s perceived backing of pro-Kremlin rebels in the restive eastern Ukraine.

Russian news agency Ria Novosti quoted an official from the Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev’s office as saying the government was already working on the list of goods that would be banned.

Putin signed the decree “On the application of certain special economic measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation” on Wednesday, said a Kremlin statement.

The decree prohibited “import into the territory of the Russian Federation of certain agricultural products, raw materials and foodstuffs originating in the state, has decided to impose economic sanctions against Russian legal entities and (or) physical individual or party to this decision”, said the statement.

Putin had on Tuesday said Russia would respond to the West’s provocations on targeting Russia’s oil and arms industry with sanctions.

“Political instruments of pressure on the economy are unacceptable. They contradict all norms and rules,” he said.

Last week, the EU imposed travel bans and froze the assets of senior intelligence officials who Brussels claimed had contributed to the instability in Ukraine.

Russia reacted by accusing the EU of harming a series of cooperative initiatives between Moscow and Brussels in the area of fighting terrorism and proliferation of banned weapons.

“The additional sanction list is direct evidence that the EU countries have set a course for fully scaling down cooperation with Russia over the issues of international and regional security,” Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement at the time.

The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies