The authorities have decided not yet to ban the entry of trucks from the European Union into

At a meeting in the Ministry of Transport on Monday, April 18, it was decided not yet to ban the entry of trucks from the European Union into Russia in response to EU sanctions against Russian and Belarusian road carriers. This was told to RBC by a source familiar with the preparation of materials for the meeting, and an interlocutor close to one of its participants.

According to one of RBC's sources, in addition to representatives of the Ministry of Transport, the meeting was attended by officials from the Ministry of Industry and Trade and other relevant departments, as well as representatives of large Russian businesses. The position of the entrepreneurs was that such a ban could disrupt important supplies of equipment, including European machine tools, conveyors, consumables and spare parts, he adds.

As a result, instead of a ban, it was decided to introduce monitoring of the supply of goods by trucks from Europe to Russia, both sources told RBC. The timing of such monitoring was not specified, one of them added. The representative of the Ministry of Industry and Trade declined to comment, the press services of the Ministry of Transport and the government did not answer RBC's questions.

On April 8, the European Union imposed a fifth round of sanctions against Russia in response to an ongoing military operation in Ukraine that bans Russian and Belarusian trucks from entering its territory. On April 18, the Kommersant newspaper reported that the leaders of eight associations that unite food manufacturers asked Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin not to introduce mirror measures in the form of a ban on trucks from Europe entering Russia.

Russia will take measures in response to Western sanctions that best suit its internal interests, presidential spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters after this appeal from food manufacturers. “They [retaliatory measures] are formulated and worked out in the government, so we will wait for information from there. In any case, we have repeatedly said that the response will be designed in a way that best suits our internal interests,” he said.