Despite the added disincentive that intercepted illegal produce will be destroyed, traders are still trying to bring sanctioned fruit into Russia. 

The country banned imports of certain foodstuffs - including fruits and vegetables - from sanctioning nations in August 2014, with the European Union the hardest hit.

And since military confrontations near the Syrian border last year, Turkish produce has also been blacklisted.

While in the first half of March, the country's food safety watchdog intercepted 300 metric tons (MT) of produce re-exported from Belarus, it almost matched this amount again in an announcement this week.

On April 11, the Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (Rosselkhoznadzor) office for the Tver and Pskov regions detained 14 consignments of regulated apples and pears with a total weight of 270MT, which were exported from Belarus.

The watchdog did not state where the fruit came from but in previous reports the most frequently intercepted sources of origin for apples and pears have been Poland and Belgium.

In a separate announcement, Rosselkhoznadzor said it had intercepted several illegal produce consignments in a truck during operations in the region of Rostov.

The seizure - including 9MT of Turkish tomatoes, 2.16MT of Czech tomatoes, 1.9MT of Czech pears and 152kg of Czech lettuce - was taken to landfill.

Photo: Rosselkhoznadzor

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