Russia: Five countries added to retaliatory food embargo list - Medvedev

Russia has extended its food import embargo to five additional countries following more "anti-Russian sanctions" by those states, Russian Prime Minister Dmitri Medvedev announced in Moscow, Thursday. The five states that are now "subject to retaliatory economic measures" by Moscow are: Albania, Montenegro, Iceland, Liechtenstein and, with conditions, Ukraine. They will now be "added to the list of countries" that have been "prohibited from supplying certain agricultural products [to Russia] since last August," the prime minister said. Medvedev also cast doubt on the suggestion that the five states were "obliged" to adopt the anti-Russian measures due to "some sort of agreement with the EU." He said "this position is only partially true," calling their joint action "a conscious choice, which shows their readiness to accept our response measures." The embargo against Ukraine, Medvedev said, will only come into force if Kiev "applies the economic part of the Association Agreement with the EU." The Poroshenko administration will have until the new year to "solve certain of its problems connected to economic regulation" or else the ban will also apply to Ukraine, Medvedev said.