The restrictions have been announced due to an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in Germany
Russia’s food safety watchdog (Rosselkhoznadzor) has banned imports of meat from the EU due to the risk of foot-and-mouth disease (FMD). In a statement released on Friday, the watchdog announced that imports and transit of the products through Russian territory to third countries will be prohibited starting January 20.
The embargo comes after Germany reported its first outbreak of FMD in nearly 40 years last week, in a herd of water buffalo in the Brandenburg region near Berlin. Officials in Germany have since implemented a 3km exclusion zone and a 10km monitoring zone.
FMD is a contagious viral disease of animals such as cattle, sheep, goats, and pigs. Symptoms include fever, sores, blisters, and reluctance to move or eat. The animals are often slaughtered to contain outbreaks.
The detection of the outbreak has prompted German meat import bans by multiple countries, including Australia, Argentina, South Korea, the UK, Canada, and Mexico.
Within the EU, border control has been tightened by Belgium, France, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Poland.
However, according to Rosselkhoznadzor estimates, the measures taken by the European Commission to contain the spread of the disease are “insufficient.”
The Russian food safety watchdog said one of the reasons for the emergence of the disease in Germany was the “uncontrolled” movement of cattle and livestock products through Ukraine across the EU.
According to Rosselkhoznadzor, the most likely route of its occurrence is Türkiye-Ukraine-Poland-Germany. Studies by the National Reference Laboratory and the EU Reference Laboratory confirmed that the virus belongs to the FMD disease serotype O, the closest sequence of which was discovered in Türkiye in December 2024.
“This is extremely concerning given the virtual absence of a veterinary service on the territory of Ukraine,” Rosselkhoznadzor wrote, noting that European and Ukrainian media previously published information about the disclosure of fraudulent schemes for the smuggling of various goods, including agricultural products, operating in the port of Odessa.
German livestock farmers have expressed concerns that they could suffer crippling costs as a result of the FMD outbreak. The country’s farming cooperatives association said on Thursday that the farming and food industry is likely to have lost around €1 billion ($1 billion) in business following the outbreak.
