Russian Federation steamrolls Western cheese, fruit to enforce ban

A spokeswoman for the food safety agency Rosselkhoznadzor said that the flattened cheese – amounting to nearly nine tons – would be buried.

Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered the destruction of the goods – which included pork, tomatoes, peaches and cheese – in a landfill and garbage incinerators, The New York Times reported.

MOSCOW (AP) – The Russian government steamrolled tons of contraband cheese and destroyed fruit with tractors Thursday in a public display of its commitment to its one-year-old ban on Western foods.

It took a steamroller about an hour to crush 9 metric tons of contraband cheese in the Belgorod region near Russia’s western border.

With annual food price inflation running at over 20 per cent, public indignation has been deepened by Russian media reports that the agriculture ministry was tendering to buy “mobile food crematoria” to speed up the destruction. European food and art were considered a symbol of refinement and modernity, as well as a potential threat to Russia’s traditional way of life as early as the 18th century.

Some leading Russian vendors and IT companies have suggested that implementation of these goals would cause serious problems as the majority of Russian electronics products and devices are 90 percent dependent on foreign components.

Russian President Vladmir Putin chairs a meeting with members of the government at the Novo-Ogaryovo state residence outside Moscow, Russia, August 5, 2015.

On the eve of the new policy of destroying seized, contraband food, Dmitry Peskov, Putin’s aide, commented on the petition to reverse the practice.

The move has been widely criticised for wasting food as the economic crisis and sanctions have pushed millions of Russians into poverty and made it harder for them to afford basic foods. The visuals of Russia’s stepped-up fight against sanctioned foodstuffs have been dramatic, and left many Russians wondering why so much is being destroyed in a country where millions of people live below the poverty line. “If the food can simply be eaten, why destroy it?”

“This is no ordinary measure. This can be a show of barbarity, a problem to society, a refusal to see the moral aspect, the place it’s most necessary”, Vedomosti enterprise every day wrote in a front-page editorial.

A Change.org petition asking Mr Putin to cancel the order and distribute the illicit cheese to vulnerable groups like pensioners and orphans had gathered 271,940 signatures by Thursday afternoon. The Russian economy has been in a recession since the beginning of 2015 because of lower oil prices and Western sanctions on exports.

The perceived absurdity of the meals destruction marketing campaign prompted an outpouring of black humour.