Like many farmers in Russia, Sergei Kulik is exploring ways to fill in the gaping void left by the sanctions. He has asked for government subsidies and hopes to expand his farm from its current 5 hectares to a total of 30 hectares. "The sanctions have led to empty shelves in terms of exotic seafood," he says. "So I think gourmets are suffering."
Read more of Claire Bigg and Andrei Kolokoltsev's piece here:
Russian Oysters? Foie Gras? Not A Problem, Say Farmers In Sanctions-Hit Russia
Sadly, it seems the casualties in eastern Ukraine continue to mount despite the declared cease-fire:
The United Nations says fighting in eastern Ukraine has killed an average of 13 people a day since a cease-fire between Ukraine and pro-Russian rebels was signed on September 5.
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad al-Hussein announced the figure on November 20.
The UN rights agency said at least 4,317 people have been killed and 9,921 wounded since April in the conflict, which has brought ties between Russia and the West to post-Cold War lows.
It said 957 of the deaths were recorded between September 5 and November 18, a toll that reflects daily violations of the cease-fire deal signed in Minsk.
The number of people registered as displaced within Ukraine soared from 275,489 in mid-September to 466,829 on November 19, the UN rights agency said.
(AP, Reuters)
Here's an update from our news desk:
The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) says a group of its monitors was shot at by "uniformed personnel" in eastern Ukraine.
The OSCE said in a statement that a uniformed man on the back of a flatbed cargo truck fired two shots in the direction of OSCE vehicles as they were driving on November 19 near the government-held town of Maryinka, some 15 kilometers west of the rebel-held city of Donetsk.
"The bullets struck about two meters from the second OSCE vehicle," the statement said, adding that the convoy left the area immediately.
The OSCE did not assign blame to government forces or pro-Russian separatists, but said the incident occurred in government-held territory.
OSCE monitors are observing a much-violated September 5 cease-fire in the conflict that the UN says has killed more than 4,100 people in eastern Ukraine since April.
It seems Big Macs are back on the menu on Moscow's Pushkin Square (from RFE/RL's news desk):
The first McDonald's restaurant in Moscow reopened on November 19 after closing for nearly three months over health and safety violations.
The fastfood restaurant on Moscow's Pushkin Square, which opened in 1990, closed in late August in what became a string of closures of McDonald's restaurants throughout Russia.
The move was viewed broadly as a retaliation for Western sanctions on Moscow for its role in the Ukraine crisis.
Many have reopened since, but, according to the company, there are still 200 inspections ongoing and four restaurants outside Moscow remain closed.
The country's food safety agency, Rospotrebnadzor, said the closures, which came after unexpected inspections, were not related to the Russia standoff with the West.
A spokeswoman for McDonald's Russian operations, Svetlana Polyakova, said the company has complied with Rospotrebnadzor's demands.
(AFP, Reuters, dpa, Interfax)