Amidst a continuing dispute with Georgia that centers on the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia but which is really about Russian control over Eastern Europe, that has seen Russia deporting Georgian diplomats and spiking Georgian gas prices while enacting a trade embargo, and amidst controversy over whether the Russian government was involved in the assassination of Anna Politkovskaya and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, Russia has now announced that it's going to ban imports of EU animal products.
The ostensible reason? The Russian government claims that two pending EU members, Bulgaria and Romania, have poor animal health standards.
The real reason? Most likely that the Russian executive is upset about declining influence over its Eastern European neighbors. The last time Russia threatened a ban on EU animal products was ahead of the entry of another eight former Eastern bloc nations into the EU.
Although Putin appears to be effectively consolidating his control within Russia, the heavy-handed nature of these interventions or would-be-interventions have increasingly driven its neighbors toward the EU and the US.