Russia to extend Western-food embargo:
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev says Moscow plans to extend its embargo on Western food products by a year and a half.
Medvedev said on May 27 that he had "ordered proposals to be drawn up to extend the retaliatory measures not by a year but until the end of 2017."
Moscow's countersanctions had been due to expire in three months.
Medvedev's announcement of plans to now extend them comes as the European Union prepares to debate renewing its sanctions regime against Moscow next month.
The EU's foreign-policy chief, Federica Mogherini, said earlier this month she expected the bloc to extend its sanctions once again.
Since August 2014 Moscow has banned most food imports from Western countries, particularly from the European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Russia for its 2014 annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in eastern Ukraine.
Russia extended its countersanctions by a year last August.
Moscow says the countersanctions help Russian agriculture firms grow stronger by meeting the needs of Russian consumers without European supplies. (AFP, Reuters)
Nadia Savchenko has said she would consider running for president if her fellow Ukrainians wanted her to. At a press conference in Kyiv on May 27, Savchenko also spoke harshly of Vladimir Putin, using a popular epithet for the Russian president. (RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service)
