The Immorality of Petulant Vengeance

"Other kinds of food will be mixed with earth to make it unusable"
"Every product is different -- some could be burnt, some buried."
Yuri Ladygin, head, customs service, Russian far east

"I fully support the policy of our president and parliament and want to make my own small contribution to allowing Russia to rise from its knees. It’s a shame we don’t have mobile crematoria, that would be better, and then we could burn more ... Burn, you French filth. I hope they see this in Obama’s fascist Yankeeland. Russia, arise!"
Russian television presenter, local channel, satirical send-up, Siberian town of Nizhnevartovsk

There are some 20 million people in Russia who live in dire poverty. But in Russia today tonnes and tonnes and mountains of food is being destroyed, trashed, composted, dug into the earth, wasted and authorities are looking for even more to lay waste to. Bulldozers and excavators were used to mulch cheese and fruit, destroying European food. On orders from the top. Vladimir Putin doesn't much appreciate having his good name besmirched by pusillanimous Europeans and Americans.

Workers throw peaches off a truck outside the city of Novozybkov. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

Oops, Canadians too. And so in the border city of Belgorod, state television featured a bulldozer mashing its way into a seven-tonne mountain of "suspected" cheeses; suspected because, of course, it came from the European Union. Workers in the Ohrenburg region were busy flinging contraband produce into a huge pit, there to rot.

Businesses across Russia were raided by customs and public health officials. For they were suspected of trading in Dutch raspberries, or British cheddar. Which has obviously become a federal offence. The Federal Service for Veterinary & Phytosanitary Surveillance, the main Russian public health watchdog, noted that officials had managed to recover Polish and Irish meat from the Moscow suburb of Reutov.

As well, Polish apples and vegetables were taken into destructive custody in Novosibirsk and Tver.

Bulldozer destroying illegally imported cheese in the Belgorod region. Photograph: Reuters

Inspiring one truck driver to hurriedly turn about back to Belarus with his haul of forbidden food, just a lap before border officials were about to confiscate and destroy his 'illegal' cargo. Customs officials claim that some meat is not to be destroyed, it will instead be ground into bone meal. The Russian embargo embraces food coming from the European Union, the United States, Canada, Norway and Australia.

Some cured meats, cereal products and alcohol have been exempted. Sanctions imposed on Russia in response to Mr. Putin's annexation of Crimea and its obvious involvement in the civil war ongoing in eastern Ukraine has offended the Kremlin grievously. Evidently Moscow is so displeased with the outrageous international cabal ranged against it, that it would not give consideration to feeding the Russian poor with the confiscated food.

They too are punished for the wrongdoing of the international community against blameless Russia.