Serious cheese-crushing business

Scenes from Day 1 of Russia's new campaign to destroy sanctioned Western food imports

Today, August 6, marks the first day Russia is implementing Vladimir Putin's executive order to destroy sanctioned food products confiscated at the border. Not wasting any time getting started, Russia's Federal Service for Veterinary and Phytosanitary Surveillance (FSVPS) is already on the job. "This isn't a one-stage campaign," an agency official told reporters this week. "It's serious work."

In Russia's Belgorod region, the job of destroying confiscated food kicked off with a 45-ton bulldozer, which flattened about 9 tons of cheese per hour. After being crushed, the cheese was shoveled into a landfill and buried. Officials are eager to demonstrate just how much forbidden food they're able to destroy. Meduza presents photographs from Belgorod, where many illicit cheeses came to the end of the road, earlier today.