One year after Russia banned all western food products, the country began destroying tons of confiscated products on Thursday, provoking outrage and protests in a place where poverty rates have soared and memories of Soviet famine still linger. President Vladimir Putin ordered the ban in response to sanctions enacted by the U.S. and its European allies over Russia's alleged military aggression in eastern Ukraine.
But Russia's notoriously corrupt customs inspections haven't been able to stop the flow of many western products which were simply relabeled as coming from non-European countries and smuggled into Russia, according to NPR.
Putin then decided to sign a decree ordering all confiscated western food "be destroyed in front of witnesses, and the act should be captured on video, to preclude corruption," As the Guardian reported.
Officials threw over 300 tons of cheese, fruits, pork and vegetables into landfills and garbage incinerators, according to The New York Times. An additional 400 tons of various food products were seized, according to Reuters.
With a rising poverty rate that now stands at 16 percent, Russian citizens were furious and started a petition urging the government to donate the food to poor people suffering from the country's recessions, reported The Associated Press.
"Sanctions have led to a major growth in food prices on Russian shelves. Russian pensioners, veterans, large families, the disabled and other needy social groups were forced to greatly restrict their diets, right up to starvation," the petition, which has over 280,000 signatures, says. "If you can just eat these products, why destroy it?"
The Kremlin released a statement Thursday saying it would take the petition into account.
Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov added: "We are talking here about smuggled goods, which had no certificates and other documents and no one would assume responsibility and guarantee that the goods, which can look very palatable, do not pose risk to human health."
