FINANCIAL TIMES: Russia has threatened to completely bar all US agricultural products from its market and slap an import ban on all fruit and vegetables from the EU, indicating that Moscow has chosen a hardline response to western sanctions over the Ukraine crisis.
“Everything [in the agricultural sector] that is produced and imported to Russia from the United States will be banned,” Aleksei Alekseenko, an aide to the regulator in charge of food inspections, told Ria Novosti, the state news agency, late on Wednesday night. “Fruit and vegetables from the European Union will also be under a full ban,” Ria quoted him as saying.
If implemented, the broad bans could hurt European and American agricultural and food exporters hard, but also have the potential to drive up already high inflation in Russia and even trigger shortages of some goods… (more)
