TULA, April 4. /TASS/. Russia’s introduction of a food embargo in 2014 was a challenging and risky move, but the major concerns proved to be unjustified, while domestically produced food turned out better, President Vladimir Putin said when speaking with the staff of the Tulazheldormash plant on Tuesday.

"In 2014, in response to sanctions imposed on Russia we took retaliatory steps, restricting access to the Russian market for the agricultural products of those countries that had slapped sanctions on us. It was not only a challenging, but also a risky move, because overall the critics and naysayers predicted that we would be left without the required assortment of foodstuffs, and we would be bereft of food altogether. But that did not occur, and what happened was the exact opposite of the disaster that our detractors were predicting," he said.

Russian agribusiness entered those market niches that had been freed up [by the absence of imports] with its own products in large volumes, and their quality has proven to be higher than that of any Western products, Putin stressed. "This is because from the very beginning, from the very first steps we began to devote particular attention to environmental issues and food quality standards," he noted.