MOSCOW, May 28. /TASS/. Russian border guards prevented import of sanctioned products to the country in the amount of 1.5 bln rubles ($21 mln) in 2019, First Deputy Director of the Federal Security Service (FSB), head of the Border Service of the FSB of Russia Vladimir Kulishov said in an interview with TASS.

"Last year, at the Russian-Belarusian and Russian-Kazakh stretches of the state border, our border guards in interaction with state control agencies, prevented smuggling of sanctioned agricultural products worth more than 1.5 billion rubles," he said.

Kulishov said that in cooperation with the customs and the agriculture watchdog (Rosselkhoznadzor), the border prevented the import of more than 10,000 tonnes of goods.

He noted that amid continued anti-Russian economic sanctions of Western European states and Russia’s retaliatory measures aimed at protecting national economic interests, the number of attempts to illegally transfer sanctioned and counterfeit products across the state border is growing.

The head of the Border Service also said that the number of attempts to illegally move goods, cargos and strategic raw materials across the state border has not decreased.

"As a rule, on the state border with the Baltic countries the smuggled items are tobacco products, on the Ukrainian border these are consumer goods, on the border with Kazakhstan - these are fuels and lubricants and alcohol-containing products, on the Chinese border, these are timber, minerals and precious metals, as well as fragments of wild and relict animals," Kulishov said.

He added, recently, on some stretches of the border, there have been attempts to export means of prevention and individual protection from coronavirus infection.