Price tag $5,000. How Belarus helps West dodge Russia's food embargo


The general director of a Russian logistics company told Forbes what way Polish apples may be converted into Argentinian and how Canadian shrimps become Bangladeshi.

Belarus, Kazakhstan and the Baltic countries keep helping countries of the West to bypass Russia’s food embargo, forbes.ru reports.

Ruslan Kiss, General Director of Petersburg-based company ‘Russian Logistics Provider’ states that about 40-50% of the blacklisted goods get to Russia through Belarus and Kazakhstan. There is no control over exercising conter-sanctions, the businessman says.

“Another significant part [of prohibited Imports] is turning into Egyptian, Pakistani, Serbian.etc from Spanish, German, Italian in the Baltic countries,” Kiss stresses.

Changing the labels on unwelcome goods has been stamped out on the assembly line and does not cost much. According to Kiss, the price for necessary documents for a batch of banned fruit or vegetables is $ 5,000 in Belarus.

“For 300,000 Russian rubles it takes only a few hours to make your Polish apples Serbian, Argentinian or Israeli. In Klaipeda Canadian shrimps will become Bangladeshi for € 5,000. And all the documents (from the Belarusians and from the Baltic states) look as they were original – phyto- and veterinary certificates will be on paper with water marks,” Ruslan Kiss added.

Read also: Russia destroys about 320 tons of sanctioned EU food in one day. Peaches, cherries next in turn

On July 29, Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a decree that enacted incinerating agricultural products that are prohibited from being imported into Russia.

Over 250,000 Russians have protested against the destruction of fresh food and spoken for their transfer to the poor citizens.

www.belsat.eu/en/

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