Ukraine has expanded a list of Russian items banned from being brought into the country as sanctions imposed by the United States and western allies are reported to be having more of an impact on Moscow that previously predicted.
Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk on Monday unveiled a list containing 43 categories of Russian-made products that are prohibited from being imported into Ukraine, including meat, fish, coffee, filtered cigarettes, beer, tea, vodka and other goods.
“I have instructed the Economic Ministry to review and expand the list of [banned] products that should be categorized as countermeasures to protect the Ukrainian domestic market against Russian economic aggression,” Mr. Yatsenyuk said, local media quoted.
Ukraine’s decision to expand the scope of banned Russian goods was announced two days after President Vladimir Putin told German media that that existing sanctions imposed as a result of Moscow’s policies towards Kiev “are severely harming Russia.”
The International Monetary Fund has suggested that Russia’s economy shrank 3.8 percent in 2015, amid embargoes and other restrictions put in place after the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea was annexed by Mr. Putin in March 2014, Reuters reported this week.
“The Russian population is absolutely clear about the situation,” Mr. Putin told Germany’s Bild newspaper. “The reunification of Crimea and Russia is just. The West’s sanctions are not aimed at helping Ukraine but at geo-politically pushing Russia back. They are foolish and are merely harming both sides.”
“The sanctions are designed not to push Russia over the economic cliff,” a U.S. State Department official told Reuters this week. “That would be bad for the Russian people.”
Nevertheless, the European Union and U.S. plan on keeping economics sanctions in place against Russia until at least July.
A slew of trade embargoes announced out of both Moscow and Kiev in recent weeks could cause further fiscal complications in the months to come: Russia has outright banned all food exports to Ukraine as of Jan. 1, the same day that a free-trade agreement went into effect between Kiev and the European Union; and Russia began blocking Ukrainian goods from being transported across Russia en route to other countries, which is forcing Kiev to consider a new trade route that will bypass Russia altogether on the way to Kazakhstan.
The United Nations has reported over 9,000 fatalities in the nearly two years since Russia’s aggression in Ukraine escalated amid the ousting of Viktor Yanukovych, a pro-Kremlin politician who left office in February 2014.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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