MOSCOW, November 18. /TASS/. Russia's government has decided to impose food embargo against Ukraine starting from January 1, Russia’s Economic Development Minister Alexey Ulyukayev said in an interview aired by the Rossiya-24 TV news channel on Wednesday.

"Since Ukraine joined anti-Russia sanctions - economic, financial - we’ve decided to impose … protective measures in the form of food embargo," he said, adding that the decision is "postponed till January 1."

"Most likely we’ll have to protect our market on a unilateral basis from unattended access of goods through Ukraine’s customs territory, those being goods from third countries, first of all from the states of the European Union. The protection will mainly concern introduction of most favored nation regime. In a situation like that we won’t have reasons for keeping zero rate of customs tariff with Ukraine," the minister said.

Earlier Ulyukayev said that in case it is imposed the food embargo against Ukraine will be similar to that applied to the EU countries while potential damage for the economy may reach around 100 bln rubles ($1.5 bln) "per year."

In mid-August of 2015 Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said that in case Kiev accepts the economic part of the agreement on its association with the European Union supplies of agricultural products from the country to Russia will be banned. Back then Medvedev noted that Moscow gave time to Kiev to solve issues related to economic regulation till January 1, 2016.

Sanctions against Russia

On August 1, 2014, the European Union imposed sanctions against the Russian Federation in connection with the events in Ukraine and the reunification of Crimea with Russia and later repeatedly extended them. A number of other countries, including the United States, Australia, Canada and Norway, joined the sanctions.

In response, Russia imposed a package of countermeasures against the EU member-states and some other countries /the US, Canada, Australia, Norway/ from August 7, 2014 and against the Republic of Albania, Montenegro, the Republic of Iceland and the Principality of Liechtenstein - from August 7, 2015 till August 6, 2016. Russia’s countermeasures involved a ban on the import of vegetables and fruit, dairy, meat and meat products, fish and seafood from these countries.