Russian President Vladimir Putin on Wednesday ordered restrictions on billions of dollars of food imports from the U.S. and other nations in retaliation for sanctions imposed over the turmoil in Ukraine.
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The order bans food and agricultural imports for one year from countries that have imposed or supported sanctions against Russia, according to the Kremlin website.
Russia is embroiled in a standoff with the U.S. and its allies over Ukraine, where government troops are cracking down on pro-Russia separatist strongholds in the east. The U.S. and the European Union targeted the Russian economy, expanding penalties last week. They were joined by Canada, Japan, and Switzerland after the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet in Ukraine's rebel-controlled area.
The U.S. and the EU have accused Russia, which annexed Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula in March, of aggravating tensions in eastern Ukraine by supplying arms and expertise to a pro-Moscow insurgency.
Putin said the food restrictions were imposed "to protect national interests," according to the decree. He called on the government to boost domestic supplies with the help of producers and retailers and to avoid spurring food-price growth.
"Retaliating against Western companies or countries will deepen Russia's international isolation, causing further damage to its own economy," Laura Lucas, a spokesman for U.S. President Barack Obama's National Security Council, said in an email. "We continue to call on Russia to take immediate steps to deescalate the conflict and cease its efforts to destabilize Ukraine."
The Russian government is drawing up a list of restricted goods. It plans to ban the import of all U.S. agricultural products, including poultry, as well as all fruit and vegetable imports from the European Union, Alexei Alexeenko, spokesman for Russian food safety watchdog Rosselkhoznadzor, said in a report by Russia's RIA Novosti news service.
"From the USA, all products that are produced there and brought to Russia will be prohibited," Alexeenko said.
Alexeenko also was quoted as saying he thinks all fruits and vegetables from European Union countries will also be banned.
Russia depends heavily on imported foodstuffs -- most of it from the West -- particularly in the largest and most prosperous cities such as Moscow. Food and agricultural imports from the U.S. amounted to $1.2 billion last year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and in 2013 the EU's agricultural exports to Russia totaled $15.8 billion.
EU members Germany, Poland and the Netherlands are among Russia's 15 biggest food suppliers, as is the U.S., the U.S. Department of Agriculture said last month in a guide for exporters, citing data from the Global Trade Atlas.
About three-fifths of all U.S. farm exports to Russia this year have been soybeans, poultry and pork, according to USDA data. Even before the decree, Russia's public-health regulators banned some imports from EU member countries, the U.S. and Ukraine, in what those nations have called a veiled form of trade protectionism.
"America's farmers and ranchers would have been more surprised if they hadn't announced a ban," said Dale Moore, public-policy director for the American Farm Bureau Federation, the biggest U.S. farmer group. "Russia does so regularly for seemingly small reasons, and now they have to deal with sanctions. This is a typical reaction by Russia."
The food shipped to Russia in 2013 by the U.S., the world's biggest exporter of farm products, accounted for 4 percent of that country's total imports, according to the USDA.
Russia's list of banned goods will be published today, said Natalya Timakova, spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev. The list will be flexible, allowing for revisions in goods and timing, according to the decree.
The limitations will include vegetables, fruits and meat products and will exclude wine and baby food, the Russian newspaper Vedomosti reported, citing an unidentified government official. Some dairy products also will be restricted, the newspaper said, citing another unidentified official.
Import restrictions have a "direct effect" on food prices, keeping them high despite an overall decline in the cost of fruits and vegetables, Maxim Oreshkin, head of the Russian Finance Ministry's strategic planning department, said Monday on the ministry's Facebook page.
Putin's order appears to show that Russia, though increasingly suffering the effects of Western sanctions, is disinclined to back down on Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly denied allegations that it is supporting the Ukrainian rebels or supplying them with equipment and has rejected claims that its artillery has been firing from across the border.
Russia's Foreign Ministry on Tuesday called for a humanitarian mission to eastern Ukraine, which it said is on the verge of a "catastrophe." Ukraine considers the proposal "cynical" and blames its neighbor for not allowing the military conflict to end, Andriy Lysenko, a spokesman for Ukraine's Security and Defense Council, said Wednesday in Kiev.
The U.S. on Wednesday warned of the risk of Russia sending troops into Ukraine.
The threat of an incursion is "reality," U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said. Earlier, NATO expressed concerns about a threat of Russian troops crossing the border under the "pretext" of a humanitarian or peacekeeping mission, and Poland warned that the risk of invasion has grown recently.
"It's a reality; of course it is," Hagel said at the headquarters of the U.S. European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. "When you see the buildup of these troops, the sophistication and training of these troops, the heavy military equipment that's being put on the border, of course it's a reality and it's a possibility."
Despite bipartisan pressure from lawmakers to send U.S. military aid to Ukraine, however, the Obama administration thus far has said it doesn't believe that U.S. military assistance is needed.
"Keep in mind that the Russian army is a lot bigger than the Ukrainian army," Obama said at a news conference. "So the issue here is not whether the Ukrainian army has some additional weaponry."
In Ukraine's easternmost regions, government troops are pressing ahead with an offensive against insurgents.
Eighteen soldiers were killed and 54 wounded in fighting during a 24-hour period, Lysenko, the Ukrainian defense council spokesman, said Wednesday. Three civilians were killed in shelling in Donetsk, with artillery fire damaging infrastructure and residential buildings, the City Council said on its website.
The fighting is hampering efforts to examine the crash site of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, which the U.S. said was probably shot down last month with a missile fired by the insurgents. The Dutch-led mission to retrieve human remains and evidence from the site of the crash was halted Wednesday because of security concerns.
In announcing the abrupt pullout, only six days after the search officially started, Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte said it was too dangerous for the team to continue. He promised families of the 298 crash victims that the search would resume when Ukraine is "more stable."
"The security situation has worsened in recent days, tensions have risen and the crash site has become less and less accessible," Pieter-Jaap Aalbersberg, head of the recovery mission, said in a statement Wednesday. "The experts are not able to perform their task adequately."
The decision to abort the search was made on a day when the team's work was interrupted by small-weapons fire nearby. The team had to seek shelter.
Afterward, monitors with the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe told team members that it was no longer safe to remain at the crash site, Aalbersberg said.
As tensions over Ukraine rise, a respected newspaper this week cited unnamed sources as saying Russia is considering closing its airspace to European carriers flying to Asia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Wednesday said he wouldn't comment on "rumors" of airspace being closed, but he said, "Our Western partners should think about their companies and their citizens," the Interfax news agency reported.
Information for this article was contributed by Olga Tanas and Alan Bjerga, Elena Mazneva, Anatoly Medetsky, Ilya Khrennikov, James G. Neuger, Daria Marchak, Gopal Ratnam and staff members of Bloomberg News; by Jim Heintz, Josh Lederman, Mary Clare Jalonick and Deb Riechmann of The Associated Press; and by Carol Morello of The Washington Post.
A Section on 08/07/2014