Russia is responding to fresh sanctions from Canada, the U.S. and other countries with a ban on food imports for a year.
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says the ban covers Canada, the U.S. the European Union, Australia, Norway and covers;
Meat, Fish, Milk and milk products, Fruit and vegetables.
The move announced Thursday was taken on orders from President
Vladimir Putin in response to sanctions imposed over the crisis in
Ukraine. The ban will cost farmers in North America, Europe and Australia billions of dollars but also isolates Russian consumers from world trade to a degree unseen since Soviet days.
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Russia's sanctions will mostly affect Canada's pork industry.
Canada's agricultural exports to Russia amounted to $563 million in
2012, according to Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada, and most of them
were frozen pork.Canada on Wednesday slapped new sanctions and travel bans on several top Russian and Ukrainian politicians and groups with ties to Putin's government.
Those sanctions, imposed in co-ordination with the
U.S. and the EU, came amid reports Russia is massing thousands of troops
along the Ukrainian border. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has frequently said Russia's occupation of the Crimean Peninsula and provocative military activity in eastern Ukraine is a "grave concern" to Canada and the world.
Harper said Canada is prepared to take further actions if Putin's government continues its military aggression.
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