Putin orders Western food destroyed
MOSCOW (Reuters) — As poverty rates soar and memories remain of famine during Soviet times, Russian officials have steamrolled tons of cheese, fruit and vegetables in a controversial drive to destroy Western food smuggled into the crisis-hit country.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has provoked outrage with his order to trash all food that breaches a year-old embargo on imports imposed in retaliation to sanctions by the United States, European Union and others over the Ukraine crisis.
Even some Kremlin allies are expressing shock at the idea of “food crematoria,” while one Russian Orthodox priest has denounced the campaign, which officially began on Thursday, as sinful.
Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov, who normally toes the Kremlin line, said the move was “extreme” and proposed sending the food to orphanages and to the separatist pro-Russian regions of eastern Ukraine.
However, the authorities consider illegal imports “a security threat” and Russian television showed truckloads of round bright orange cheeses dumped on a patch of wasteland and then crushed with a steamroller in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.
Even before the official start, zealous workers threw boxes of European bacon into an incinerator.
Many Russians said the government has lost sight of the everyday struggles faced by ordinary citizens.
”This is no ordinary measure. This is a display of barbarity, a challenge to society, a refusal to see the ethical side where it is most important,”
Vedomosti business daily wrote in a front-page editorial.
More than 285,000 people have backed an online petition on Change.org, an international website that hosts campaigns, calling on Putin to revoke the decision and hand the food to people in need.