Citing health concerns, Russia last week announced new sanctions on meat products from the European Union, widening its restrictions on Western food imports. Its federal supervisory agency for agriculture, the Rosselkhoznadzor, said “temporary restrictions” will go into effect Tuesday on European beef and pork offal – the entrails and internal organs such as liver and kidneys – as well as beef, pork and chicken fat.
The agency said it imposed the import ban because “banned and harmful substances,” including antibiotics, had been found in these meat products and byproducts. It did not identify what other substances had been found.
Earlier this year, Russia had imposed restrictions on food imports from Europe and the United States that were widely seen as retaliation for Western sanctions over its annexation of the Crimean peninsula and its support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.