Putin allowed importing Belarusian cheese to Russia, but said nothing about lifting sanctions

Russia and Belarus had reached some arrangements on milk delivery, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said.

“Import of dry milk will be reduced, but we’ll buy more products we need – cheese and curd,” Putin said.

The Russian prime minister asked minister of agriculture Elena Skrynik to implement that arrangement in practice and expressed a hope there would be “no problems with custom and sanitary control,” Interfax notes.

The prime minister didn’t say if the decree of the Russian Agency for Health and Consumer Rights banning selling almost 600 types of Belarusian dairy products in Russia would be withdrawn, Lenta.ru reports.

On June 9, head of the Russian Agency for Health and Consumer Rights Gennady Onishchenko said importing practically all milk products from Belarus was banned. The chief sanitary officer didn’t say the exact number of Belarusian products forbidden to import to Russia.

On June 6, Onishchenko banned import of more than 1000 dairy products as Belarusian enterprises failed to execute documents required by Russian technical regulations come in force in December 2008. Onishchenko said later he planned to ban import of other 800 types of diary products from Belarus.

Belarus is one of the biggest milk producers in Europe. It delivers products mainly in Russia, sharing 4 per cent at the Russian milk market in 2008. According to the Russian government, Belarus, producing 6 million tons of milk a year, delivers 4 million tons.

On June 9, foreign minister of Russia and Belarus said ban on import of Belarusian dairy products to Russia couldn’t be regarded as sanctions against Minsk. It became known on June 9 that Russia, Kazakhstan, and Belarus created the Common Customs Union and agreed to join the WTO only as part of the customs union.