RUSSIA announced a ban on most fruit and vegetable imports from Poland yesterday and said it may extend the restrictions to the rest of the European Union, its first apparent retaliation to new Western sanctions imposed over Ukraine a day earlier.

    Moscow, which buys more than 2 billion euros (US$2.69 billion) worth of EU fruit and vegetables a year making it by far the biggest export market for the products, said the ban was for sanitary reasons.

    Polish fruit growers said the ban was political, although Russia denied this.

    (SD-Agencies)