Y.Herman / Reuters

Yesterday, the head of Rosselkhoznadzor Sergei Dankvert said that quality tests of dairy products from the Netherlands were unsatisfactory. And the day before, the head of Rospotrebnadzor Gennady Onishchenko suspended deliveries of dairy products from Lithuania to Russia. Lithuanian meat and Dutch flowers are next in line.

Dutch milk has gone bad amid a diplomatic scandal involving Dmitry Borodin, an employee of the Russian embassy in the Netherlands, and the country's sharp reaction to the seizure of the Arctic Sunrise vessel sailing under the Dutch flag and its crew. Lithuanian dairy products (85% of all dairy exports from Lithuania) suddenly ceased to be of good quality after the head of the country's Foreign Ministry announced a possible blockade of the Kaliningrad region in response to stricter checks of Lithuanian goods at Russian customs. Experts link the worsening of relations with Lithuania to the Eastern Partnership summit scheduled for November in Vilnius, during which Ukraine is expected to sign an association agreement with the EU.

Many countries resort to asymmetrical measures of pressure through trade. Europe puts pressure on the US, the US puts pressure on Europe, China periodically threatens to stop buying from both. The Norwegian oil company Statoil completely lost the opportunity to do business with China after the Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the peace prize to the Chinese human rights activist and dissident Liu Xiaobo.

Yes, in trade, as in politics, not only written rules are applicable. However, the value of such methods lies in the originality and precision of application. When trade bans turn into a standard reaction to any irritant, this indicates a lack of imagination and leads to a loss of the sharpness of these measures. Who has Russia not banned yet?

The boy who scared his neighbors by shouting about wolves succeeded in making no one believe him when the wolves actually came. No one inside or outside the country believes that the Russian authorities' claims about the quality of foreign goods can be genuine. It is always politics, always a war with someone. So the responsible agencies (Rospotrebnadzor, Rosselkhoznadzor) can no longer take care of the safety of products - they have completely undermined trust in themselves.

From the editors: Crisis of the genre