Russian ban on Western food imports

Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev revealed the full list of banned items during a televised Cabinet meeting on July 7. He said the countries involved brought the ban on themselves, and "the situation now requires us to take retaliatory measures". It will hit Russia's second-largest import partner Germany particularly hard. German goods make up 12 percent of Russia's yearly imports.

The embargo comes after Moscow stopped EU imports of pig meat in January. This latest move affects products across the world, including from Australia, Spain and Belgium. Russia also warns it is still considering a ban on Western airlines flying through Russian airspace. It comes after budget airline Dobrolet was forced to suspend all flights after tough sanctions were put into place.

While Prime Minister Medvedev described the move as helping to boost local agriculture, it is also likely to cause a run on Russian shops to buy imported goods before they run out, such as dairy products from Denmark. Agriculture Minister Nikolai Fyodorov said the sector needs at least $3.8 billion (2.8 billion euros) in funding subsidies to make up the shortfall.

The EU and the US have both accused Russia of supplying pro-Russian insurgents in their March attack on Ukraine's Crimean Peninsula. Now Russia's citizens will have to do without the $329 million worth of US meat and poultry they took home in 2013. Despite this the country is just the 23rd largest purchaser of US foodstuffs.

Countries such as Turkey and Brazil are expected to help fill the gaps left by the import stoppages. Russia has already announced it plans to increase the amount of cheese it gets from New Zealand. China, Russia's biggest supplier, will be unaffected by the ban.

The news that seafood has also been blacklisted caused shares in Norwegian fish farming companies to plunge. A tenth of the country's total seafood exports go to Russia, and Norway is responsible for producing around half of the world's supply of farmed salmon. The ban is in response to Western-enforced sanctions imposed on Russia, due to its ongoing participation in the unrest in Ukraine.

The Netherlands stands to lose out on agricultural exports worth 1.5 billion euros ($20 billion) a year. Chairman of the Dutch Federation of Agriculture and Horticulture, Albert Jan Maat, said the effects of the ban would be felt across Europe, with oversupply forcing prices to drop dramatically. More than 20 percent of fruit and vegetables bought in EU end up in Russian hands.