Rarely do international sanctions look so, well, cheesy.
Last week, the Russian government marked the one-year anniversary of the ban on importing foodstuffs from the U.S. and E.U. with a brutal crackdown on Western cheese. In what the Wall Street Journal called “a display of culinary nationalism,” Russian television showed bulldozers demolishing a pile of cheese near Belgorod, on the Russian-Ukrainian border.
“The destruction has been completed, and after it is destroyed it is buried,” said Svetlana Zaporozhchenko, a Russian spokeswoman for the government agency charged with confiscating contraband food.
Her oddly bureaucratic line is merely one of the latest salvos in a tit for tat exchange between Russia and the West. When the E.U. sanctioned Russia last year, Vladimir Putin responded by imposing counter-sanctions on everything from Polish apples to Spanish ham and French cheese.
While some have attempted to skirt the ban with such ploys as stamping Parmesan cheese “Made in Belarus,” Russia’s Agricultural Minister Alexander Tkachyov reports that shipments of sanctioned products are down 90% from a year ago.
In some Moscow grocery stores, Putin supporters have even taken enforcement into their own hands, slapping stickers on products from Germany and Italy and banding together to push “Eat Russian.”
Meanwhile, upscale restaurants in Moscow and St. Petersburg are struggling to find replacements for specialty hams, meats and cheeses.
Perhaps it’s time for a return to caviar?
