Putin's War on Food Brings Back Painful Memories For Many

Boxes of food being destroyed under the orders of Putin

Kremlin stunt to destroy imports of banned European foods backfires in city that suffered starvation in World War Two

It is one of the stranger witch hunts of modern times: a crusade against food that has seen Russian officials launch a feverish hunt to bulldoze Western-made produce.

Russian soup kitchen run by mother teresas sisters of 
charity for the poor and elderly

For the Kremlin, the decision to destroy French cheeses and Polish apples smuggled into the country is a matter of sovereignty - an attempt to wage economic war on the countries that sanctioned Russia after the annexation of Crimea.

But for a great many in the city of St Petersburg, it is an incomprehensible and deeply upsetting strategy that brings back painful memories.

Many of Russia's Elderly rely on Soup Kitchens for survival

“It simply makes my heart bleed to see it. When you remember what happened here, when you have seen a child asking for food and known that you have nothing to give it, such waste is simply incomprehensible,” said Ludmilla Smirnova, a St Petersburg pensioner and veteran of the siege of what was then known as Leningrad.

Here's Vlad and Dmitry roughing it. They Feel Your Pain

Now 83, Mrs Smirnova was eight years old when the Luftwaffe blew up the vast food warehouses in the southwestern district of Leningrad where she lived with her mother and sister.

The destruction was part of a deliberate Nazi strategy of starving the surrounded city into submission, and the effects were immediate and catastrophic.

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