The food embargo will affect Ukraine only if it signs the economic part of its association with the EU, Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said.
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He said Ukraine would be added in 2016 if an economic agreement between Kiev and the European Union came into force.
Prime Minister DmitryMedvedev announced Russian Federation was banning food products from Albania, Montenegro, Liechtenstein and Iceland in retaliation for their backing of Brussels’ sanctions over the Ukraine crisis and Russia’s annexation of the Crimea peninsula.
The bulldozing of tonnes of Western-produced cheese and other foodstuffs has angered anti-poverty campaigners.
“A whole range of countries have been added beyond the countries from the European Union, Australia, Canada, Norway, and the United States, which were banned from exporting some types of foodstuffs to Russian Federation”.
Medvedev named the four additional countries as Albania, Montenegro, Iceland, and Lichtenstein. “So, joining the sanction is a conscious choice, which means that they are ready to counter-sanctions on our part, which is what has been done”, Medvedev said.
Authorities last week pulped hundreds of tons of cheese, vegetables and fruit as they began a campaign ordered by President Vladimir Putin to destroy food brought in despite the year-long embargo. “That’s our decision”, Medvedev said.
Politically, Poland land has been a strong critic of Russia’s policy – and military entanglement – in Ukraine.
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Only food that is risky to eat or of low quality should be destroyed, the draft law says.
