Citing food safety concerns, Russia has reportedly banned the import of fresh fruits and vegetables from Armenia amid heightened tensions between the two estranged allies.
Russia’s Rosselkhoznadzor agricultural watchdog notified the Armenian government’s Food Safety Inspectorate about the measure in a letter sent on July 4 and publicized by at least two Armenian media outlets late on Wednesday. It said that from April through the beginning of June Russian authorities detected eight more instances of imported Armenian tomatoes and apples exceeding the maximum residue levels of pesticides allowed in Russia and other Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) member states.
The letter signed by Rosselkhoznadzor’s deputy chief, Anton Karmazin, said that the Armenian side was already informed about those violations on June 5 and did not pledge to investigate them in response. Armenia must therefore “suspend” from July 15 agricultural exports pending “meaningful measures” that would address the Russian concerns, wrote Karmazin.
He said he is attaching to the letter a 18-page list of Armenian exporters covered by the ban. The list has not yet been leaked to the Armenian media or made public otherwise.
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As of Thursday evening, the Food Safety Inspectorate did not react to the Russian ban that could severely affect tens of thousands of Armenian farmers and greenhouse owners heavily dependent on the Russian market. The government declined to answer relevant questions from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The presumably temporary ban was widely construed by local commentators as Russian retaliation against the Armenian government’s continuing drift to the West that has prompted sterns warnings from Moscow in recent months.
Russia already blocked the import of many Armenian food products for more than a week last November, with Rosselkhoznadzor alleging a sharp increase in the presence of “harmful quarantined organisms” in them. Russian-Armenian relations have deteriorated further since then, with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian promising Armenia’s eventual exit from the Russian-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hinted in March that Armenia could not count on continued free trade with Russia if Pashinian’s government does pull it out of the CSTO. One of his deputies, Mikhail Galuzin, stepped up this warning last month.
Government data shows that Armenian exports of fruits and vegetables totaled $182.5 million in 2023 and about $70 million in January-May 2024. More than 90 percent of them went to Russia, according to Suren Parsian, a Yerevan-based economist.
“If these restrictions are enforced, they will worsen the plight of our farmers,” Parsian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “They will have to try to sell their products in the domestic market and at lower prices.”
Babken Pipoyan, who leads an Armenian consumers rights group, criticized the Armenian government for not taking action after Rosselkhoznadzor’s previous warning sent in June.
“There is [a mechanism for] assessing food safety risks,” he said. “When the government does not make this whole system function, we get what we get.”
