Russian sanctions officially extended

 

Today the Russian government issued a decree prolonging "some special economic measures to ensure the security of the Russian Federation" against EU countries, the US, Canada, Australia and Norway. 

The list includes "products made with cheese production technologies, and containing 1.5% or more milk fat," The list excludes Oncorhynchus mykiss, young (spat) oysters and mussels. This will make it possible to increase the production of aquaculture products, which are in demand on the Russian market.

The rest of the list subject to counter-sanctions remained unchanged: beef, chicken, pork, dairy products, fruits and vegetables.

A research fellow at the center for agrarian and food policy at RANEPA, Vasily Uzun, told Vestnik Kavkaza that there is nothing surprising in the minimal final changes in the list of banned products.

He drew attention to the fact that the embargo contributed to the growth of retail prices for products. "The prices for production have risen, and people are forced to buy expensive products, because we haven't got others," the expert said.

"Food, in my opinion, is not the best choice – we could choose other kinds of products to try to punish the enemy. I have already said that the ban on imports of premium cars would be more effective. In fact, we import cars from the United States, Britain, Germany and Japan – it would be an attack to the authors of the anti-Russian sanctions. And now we have punished Greece, Portugal, those who didn't really want to impose sanctions, but they were forced to do it," Vasili Uzun concluded.