When citizens of Primorye, a Russian region on the Pacific coast bordering China and North Korea, went to the shops recently, they discovered that the prices of several kinds of fish had gone up by 40 percent. Across the sea, residents of Sakhalin Island had to pay 60 percent more for poultry and 15 percent more for meat than they did just a few days ago. The food embargo imposed by the Russian government on August 7 as response for Western sanctions has started to bite.

Russia barred imports of meat, fish, seafood, vegetables, fruit, milk and dairy products from the US, the EU, Australia, Canada and Norway. The blacklist of prohibited goods will be active for at least one year. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev explained that Moscow couldn't leave unanswered three rounds of Western economic sanctions caused by the ongoing crisis in Ukraine.

The deliberate choice of agriculture for retaliation is easy to explain. Moscow wants to hit the US and European economies, which have a very loud agricultural lobby.

The Kremlin's calculation goes that the farming lobby will be now blaming Western politicians who closed a lucrative market for them in Russia and invited competition from Ukrainian farmers instead.

Moscow hopes that dissatisfaction and fear of new bans in other sectors will be an effective hedge against the upcoming fourth round of Western sanctions.

Russian media is ready to explain the benefits of the food ban to a domestic audience. TV channels are full of news about local agriculture producers who celebrate the ban, since it gives them hope to replace foreign food imports.

As the narrative goes, only rich Russians in big cities will suffer without foie gras and French cheeses.

So far, the situation seems favorable for the Kremlin. Food ban didn't cause any protests except some angry social media posts from the middle class, who are labeled as "traitors" ready to sell national dignity for French oysters. There are no lines and few empty shelves.

Some EU countries, most notably Poland and the Baltic states, and also Spain and Greece, have been particularly hit. Their farmers have run to Brussels for support, and the European Commission has put in place some aid mechanisms.

But this picture shouldn't deceive anyone. Yes, for some Western producers, Russian sanctions may be painful. EU food exports to Russia last year totaled 12 billion euros ($15.7 billion).

But one should also remember that Russia's share in EU agricultural export is just 2.5 percent, and for the US just 0.9 percent.

Some countries may be hurt more than others, since, for instance, nearly 30 percent of Finland's food exports go to Russia, and over 20 percent of those from the Baltic States, but the EU can sustain the loss of the Russian food market.

Meanwhile, banned items make up to 40 percent of Russian food imports. For some of the product groups, the embargo will be hazardous. It affects 30 percent of the Russian cheese market, around 15 percent for fruits and vegetables, and over 13 percent for both pork and fish.

It's not only about the availability of food. The banned food, which makes up to 5 percent of food market in Russia, played a significant role in promoting competition and hampering down price hikes by local producers. Removing these items will cause inflation, predicted to grow up up to 1.5 percent.

Some producers have already deliberately increased prices, as people in Primorye and Sakhalin experienced recently. For example, the Russian Sea Group, which belongs to Russia's sixth richest man Gennady Timchenko, himself on the EU and US sanctions list as a crony of Vladimir Putin, increased prices by 20 percent.

Few experts believe that the Russian agriculture sector can replace imports, since the government hasn't been doing enough in recent years to make the industry competitive. Longstanding problems of the Russian agriculture sector, such as lack of technology and capital and huge logistics costs, cannot be solved in one year. This is a price an economy that constitutes just 3 percent of global GDP has to pay for fighting 40 percent of global wealth.

The author is deputy editor-in-chief at Kommersant Vlast ("The Businesman" magazine). opinion@globaltimes.com.cn