Russians to Feel the Pinch of Banning Imports from West

Russia, in retaliation to sanctions imposed by the international community due to its alleged involvement in the downing of the MH17 flight and the ongoing violence in Ukraine, banned imports of most food products from the West, Thursday.

Prime Minister Dimitry Medvedev, acting on President Vladimir Putin's orders, announced late on Thursday that Russia would impose a one-year ban on import of beef, pork, fruit, vegetable, poultry, fish and dairy products from Australia, the EU, United States, Canada and Norway.

The New York Times reports that this move would harm Russians more than it will harm people of the West. Currently, Russia is the biggest consumer of EU fruits and vegetables, the second biggest buyer of poultry from the United States and a major global consumer of fish, meat and dairy products.

Therefore, it is obvious that the producers in the countries that Russia has banned imports from will feel the pinch - a loss of $30 million in food exports to Russia; however, the overall impact on their diversified economies will remain marginal. On the other hand, Russia imports almost 40 percent of its food needs (in terms of value). In fact, the Russian Agriculture Minister has already stated that the sanctions will lead to a hike in inflation rates; thus, forcing citizens of Russia to pay heavily for a retaliatory political answer by the country to the criticisms of the West.

Russians have not faced such a degree of isolation from world trade since the Soviet days, Reuters reports.

However, not all Russians seem unhappy. "These sanctions mean not much at all. Most day-to-day food can be sourced locally and most of the time we buy locally produced meat and vegetables anyway. I would probably miss milk products from Finland but it's not the end of the world. I really hope those sanctions show to Europe that Russia and Western Europe have much more in common than our overseas friend, the US," said Yuri Alexandrov from St Petersburg, BBC reports.

Meanwhile, Australia's Foreign Minister Julie Bishop said that Russia's "petulant" trade sanctions on Australian food imports is nothing but an example that the country was trying to evade the responsibility for downing the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17.

"Russia's petulant response seeks to avoid accountability for its actions," Bishop told Fairfax Media.

She further said that the sanctions will have "some effect on our trade," but they won't be lost as Russia is "not Australia's most significant export market by any means," The Sydney Morning Herald reports.